Fungal aetiology of keratitis/corneal ulcer is considered to be one of the leading causes of ocular morbidity, particularly in developing countries including India. More importantly,FusariumandAspergillusare reported commonly implicating corneal ulcer and against this background the present work was undertaken so as to understand the current epidemiological trend of the two fungal keratitis. During the project period, a total of 500 corneal scrapings were collected from suspected mycotic keratitis patients, of which 411 (82.2%) were culture positive for bacteria, fungi, and parasites. Among fungal aetiologies,Fusarium(216, 52.5% of 411) andAspergillus(68, 16.5% of 411) were predominantly determined. While the study revealed a male preponderance with both the fungal keratitis , it further brought out that polyene compounds (natamycin and amphotericin B) and azoles were active, respectively, againstFusariumspp. andAspergillusspp. Additionally, 94.1% of culture provenFusariumkeratitis and, respectively, 100% and 63.6% ofA. flavusandA. fumigatuswere confirmed by multiplex PCR. The sensitivity of the PCR employed in the present study was noted to be 10 fg/μl, 1 pg/μl, and 300 pg/μl of DNA, respectively, forFusarium,A. flavus,andA. fumigatus.Alarming fact was thatFusariumandAspergillusregionally remained to be the common cause of mycotic keratitis and theFusariumisolates had a higher antifungal resistance thanAspergillusstrains against most of the test drugs.

Fusarium species are reported frequently as the most common causative agents of fungal keratitis in tropical countries such as India. Sixty-five fusaria isolated from patients were subjected to multilocus DNA sequencing to characterize the spectrum of the species associated with keratitis infections in India. Susceptibilities of these fusaria to ten antifungals were determined in vitro by the broth microdilution method. An impressive phylogenetic diversity of fusaria was reflected in susceptibilities differing at species level. Typing results revealed that the isolates were distributed among species in the species complexes (SCs) of F. solani (FSSC; n = 54), F. oxysporum (FOSC; n = 1), F. fujikuroi (FFSC; n = 3), and F. dimerum (FDSC; n = 7). Amphotericin B, voriconazole, and clotrimazole proved to be the most effective drugs, followed by econazole.