A look into the relationship between outdated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treatment protocols and the overwhelming rise of mucormycosis in COVID-19 patients in India

• Published in: Infection control and hospital epidemiology Vol. 43; no. 11; pp. 1733 - 1735
• Main Authors: Jamal, Saad Ahmed, Rayapati, Aashish
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01-11-2022
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Drug dosages; Hyperglycemia; Letter to the Editor; Medical research; Steroids; Vitamin D; Zinc; India
• ISSN: 0899-823X; 1559-6834
• DOI: 10.1017/ice.2021.385

Despite official treatment protocols using evidence-based therapies, doctors across the country have typically prescribed a cocktail of medications in high does including azithromycin, doxycycline, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, and inhaled budesonide/dexamethasone,7 despite the lack of available evidence-based research for some of these medications. Zinc has typically been prescribed to patients in India in high doses of 50 mg for a course of 5 days or more.6 Although there is no evidence of a direct relationship between zinc and mucormycosis, Staats et al8 describe the importance of zinc in the fungal metabolism, observing that zinc starvation places increased stress on fungal development by interfering with zinc-binding proteins that act as transcription factors. [...]COVID-19 treatment guidelines need to be updated, and uniform compliance of these guidelines needs to be ensured across the country to prevent dire complications such as mucormycosis.