{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,2]],"date-time":"2026-07-02T21:54:55Z","timestamp":1783029295386,"version":"3.54.6"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,9,2]],"date-time":"2022-09-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1662076800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title><jats:p>Recently, India witnessed an unprecedented surge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-associated mucormycosis (CAM) cases. In addition to patient management issues, environmental Mucorales contamination possibly contributed to the outbreak. A recent study evaluated environment contamination by Mucorales in the hospital setting. However, a considerable number of CAM patients were never admitted to a hospital before the development of the disease. The present study, therefore, planned to evaluate Mucorales contamination of patients\u2019 residences.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>The residential environment of 25 patients with CAM living in north India was surveyed. Air samples were collected from indoor and immediate outdoor vicinity of the patients\u2019 residence and cultured on Dichloran Rose\u2013Bengal Chloramphenicol (DRBC) agar with benomyl for selective isolation of Mucorales. Surface swab samples were also collected from the air coolers fitted in those residences and cultured on DRBC agar. The isolates were identified by phenotypic and genotypic methods. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) was employed to evaluate the genetic relatedness of the environmental and patients\u2019 clinical isolates.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>The median spore count (mean \u00b1 SD, cfu\/m<jats:sup>3<\/jats:sup>) of Mucorales in the air of patients\u2019 bedrooms was significantly higher than in the air in other rooms in those residences (3.55 versus 1.5, p = 0.003) or the air collected directly from the front of the air cooler (p &amp;lt; 0.0001). The Mucorales spore count in the environment did not correlate with either ventilation of the room or hygiene level of the patients\u2019 residences. <jats:italic>Rhizopus arrhizus<\/jats:italic> was isolated from the environment of all patients\u2019 residences (n = 25); other Mucorales species isolated were <jats:italic>Cunninghamella bertholletiae<\/jats:italic> (n = 14), <jats:italic>Rhizopus microsporus<\/jats:italic> (n = 6), <jats:italic>Rhizopus delemar<\/jats:italic> (n = 6), <jats:italic>Syncephalastrum racemosum<\/jats:italic> (n = 1), <jats:italic>Lichtheimia corymbifera<\/jats:italic> (n = 1), and <jats:italic>Mucor racemosus<\/jats:italic> (n = 1). Genetic relatedness was observed between 11 environmental isolates from the patients\u2019 bedrooms and respective clinical isolates from patients.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title><jats:p>The study supported the view that the patients might have acquired Mucorales from the home environment during the post-COVID-19 convalescence period. Universal masking at home during patients\u2019 convalescence period and environmental decontamination could minimize exposure in those susceptible patients.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2022.953750","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,9,2]],"date-time":"2022-09-02T04:58:43Z","timestamp":1662094723000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":21,"title":["Evaluation of environmental Mucorales contamination in and around the residence of COVID-19-associated mucormycosis patients"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Anup K.","family":"Ghosh","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ravinder","family":"Singh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Snigdha","family":"Reddy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shreya","family":"Singh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shivaprakash M.","family":"Rudramurthy","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Harsimran","family":"Kaur","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hansraj","family":"Choudhary","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Arunaloke","family":"Chakrabarti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,9,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"4410","DOI":"10.1128\/JCM.01646-10","article-title":"Molecular phylogeny and proposal of two new species of the emerging pathogenic fungus saksenaea","volume":"48","author":"Alvarez","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. 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