Prevalence of COVID-19 Associated Mucormycosis in a German Tertiary Care Hospital

Ulrike Scharmann; Frank Herbstreit; Nina Kristin Steckel; Jutta Dedy; Jan Buer; Peter-Michael Rath; Hedda Luise Verhasselt

doi:10.3390/jof8030307

Prevalence of COVID-19 Associated Mucormycosis in a German Tertiary Care Hospital

J Fungi (Basel). 2022 Mar 17;8(3):307. doi: 10.3390/jof8030307.

Authors

Ulrike Scharmann¹, Frank Herbstreit², Nina Kristin Steckel³, Jutta Dedy⁴, Jan Buer¹, Peter-Michael Rath¹, Hedda Luise Verhasselt¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45122 Essen, Germany.
² Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital Essen, 45122 Essen, Germany.
³ West German Cancer Center, Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation, University Hospital Essen, 45122 Essen, Germany.
⁴ Pharmacy, University Hospital Essen, 45122 Essen, Germany.

Abstract

Due to Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a new group of patients at risk emerged with COVID-19-associated mucormycosis (CAM). Systematic studies, evaluating the prevalence of CAM are missing. To assess CAM prevalence in a tertiary care hospital in Germany, we applied direct microscopy, fungal culture and quantitative realtime in-house PCR targeting Mucorales-specific fragments of 18S and 28S rRNA on respiratory specimens of 100 critically ill COVID-19 patients. Overall, one Mucorales-PCR positive bronchoalevolar lavage was found whereas direct microscopy and fungal culture were negative in all cases. We conclude that a routine screening for CAM in Germany is not indicated.

Keywords: COVID-19; Mucorales qPCR; SARS-CoV-2; fungal infection; mucormycosis.