Mucormycosis an added burden to Covid-19 Patients: An in-depth systematic review.

As of 25th July, 2022, global Disease burden of 575,430,244 confirmed cases and over 6,403,511 deaths have been attributed to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Co-infections/secondary infections continue to plague patients around the world as result of the co-morbidities like diabetes mellitus, biochemical changes caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) especially significant elevation in free iron levels, immune suppression caused by SARS-CoV-2, and indiscriminate use of systemic corticosteroids for the treatment of severe COVID-19 disease. In such circumstances, opportunistic fungal infections pose significant challenge for COVID-19 disease therapy in patients with other co-morbidities. Although COVID-19-associated Mucormycosis (CAM) has been widely recognized, currently extensive research is being conducted on mucormycosis. It has been widely agreed that patients undergoing corticosteroid therapy are highly susceptible for CAM, henceforth high index of screening and intensive care and management is need of an hour in order to have favorable outcomes in these patients. Diagnosis in such cases is often delayed and eventually the disease progresses quickly which poses added burden to clinician and increases patient load in critical care units of hospitals. A vast perusal of literature indicated that patients with diabetes mellitus and those with other co-morbidities might be highly vulnerable to develop mucormycosis. In the present work, the case series of three patients presented at Chest Disease Hospital Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir infected with CAM has been described with their epidemiological data in supplementary section. All these cases were found to be affected with co-morbidity of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and were under corticosteroid therapy. Furthermore, given the significant death rate linked with mucormycosis and the growing understanding of the diseases significance, systematic review of the literature on CAM has been discussed and we have attempted to discuss emerging CAM and related aspects of the disease.

Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns of ESßL Producers Isolated from the Mobile Phones.

Mobile phones have become an indispensable part of human lives for communication, education, and entertainment activities. This study aims to evaluate the diversity pattern of bacterial contaminants on mobiles and to check antibiotic resistance profiles in 105 samples. The study revealed a contamination of 51% in men and 49% in women, the highest in the 21- to 30-year age group, evidencing the extreme use of mobiles by teenagers. The study observed Gram-negative bacteria (63%) versus Gram-positive bacteria (37%). Overall, Gram-negative bacterial isolates showed the highest sensitivity to antibiotic nitrofurantoin (90%) and the lowest in ampicillin (35%). Gram positive has highest incidence of sensitivity towards tigecycline (100%) and lowest in cefoxitin (20%). ESßL producers were found to be 21.0% and highest being in Klebsiella oxytoca (35%) followed by Klebsiella pneumonia (31%). Staphylococcus pseudintermedius and Staphylococcus capitis have been identified on the mobile phones for the very first time. Interestingly, some soil microbes were also isolated and unfortunately found to have some antibiotic resistance like Raoultella ornithinolytica and Sphingomonas paucimobilis. The results revealed that mobiles were contaminated with multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, and this study also showed that few of the saprophytic soil strains have antibiotic resistance, which can be an alarming situation that needs to be addressed.

Role of Antimicrobial Drug in the Development of Potential Therapeutics.

Population of the world run into several health-related emergencies among mankind and humans as it creates a challenge for the evolution of novel drug discoveries. One such can be the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains in both hospital and community settings, which have been due to an inappropriate use and inadequate control of antibiotics that has led to the foremost human health concerns with a high impact on the global economy. So far, there has been application of two strategies for the development of anti-infective agents either by classical antibiotics that have been derived for their synthetic analogs with increased efficacy or screening natural compounds along with the synthetic compound libraries for the antimicrobial activities. However, need for newer treatment options for infectious diseases has led research to develop new generation of antimicrobial activity to further lessen the spread of antibiotic resistance. Currently, the principles aim to find novel mode of actions or products to target the specific sites and virulence factors in pathogens by a series of better understanding of physiology and molecular aspects of the microbial resistance, mechanism of infection process, and gene-pathogenicity relationship. The design various novel strategies tends to provide us a path for the development of various antimicrobial therapies that intends to have a broader and wider antimicrobial spectrum that helps to combat MDR strains worldwide. The development of antimicrobial peptides, metabolites derived from plants, microbes, phage-based antimicrobial agents, use of metal nanoparticles, and role of CRISPR have led to an exceptional strategies in designing and developing the next-generation antimicrobials. These novel strategies might help to combat the seriousness of the infection rates and control the health crisis system.