The Global Popularity of COVID-19 and the Possibility of Fungal Co-infections
As the human-to-human transmitted disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has been an emergency global public health events [1, 2]. Till May 18th, 2020, the COVID-19 has rapidly spread to 212 countries and caused nearly 5 million laboratory-confirmed cases and more than 310,000 deaths globally. Like SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), SARS-CoV-2 is responsible for lower respiratory infection and can cause Acute Respiratory Distress Syndromes (ARDS) [3]. Besides, the diffuse alveolar damage with severe inflammatory exudation, COVID-19 patients always have immunosuppression with a decrease in CD4 + T and CD8 + T cells [4]. Critically ill patients, especially the patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and required mechanical ventilation, or had a longer duration of hospital stays, even as long as 50 days, were more likely to develop fungal co-infections [5]. Hence, it is important to notice that COVID-19 patients can develop further fungal infections during the middle and latter stages of this disease, especially severely ill ones [6].