Deadly ‘black fungus’ surges among India’s Covid patients

People in the age bracket of 18-44 years wait to get themselves inoculated with the Covishield vaccine at a camp held in a residential area in Chennai yesterday.

India has ordered tighter surveillance of a rare fungal disease hitting Covid-19 patients, officials said yesterday, piling pressure on hospitals struggling with the world’s highest number of daily infections of the novel coronavirus. Mucormycosis, or “black fungus” usually infects people whose immune system has been compromised, causing blackening or discolouration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing blood. Doctors believe that the use of steroids to treat severe Covid-19 could be causing the rash of cases because those drugs reduce immunity and push up sugar levels. Health Secretary Lav Agarwal said in a letter to state governments that mucormycosis had emerged as a new challenge for Covid-19 patients on steroid therapy and those with pre-existing diabetes. “This fungal infection is leading to prolonged morbidity and mortality among Covid-19 patients,” he said in the letter yesterday. He gave no numbers of the mucormycosis cases nationwide but Maharashtra, one of the states worst hit in the second wave of coronavirus infections, has reported 1,500 cases of it. Agarwal asked state governments to declare it as a “notifiable disease” under the Epidemics Act, meaning they have to identify and track every case. India yesterday reported 276,110 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours, slightly higher than a day earlier but well below the 400,000 high seen at the beginning of this month in a devastating second wave. The total caseload stands at 25.77mn, the world’s second highest after the US. Deaths rose by 3,874 overnight, taking the total tally 287,122. But with hospitals and crematoria overflowing and the health system overwhelmed, it is widely accepted that the official figures grossly underestimate the real impact of the epidemic, with some experts saying infections and deaths could be five to 10 times higher. The second wave has penetrated deep into the countryside and the additional burden of mucormycosis has hit a rural health system ill-equipped to cope. S P Kalantari, a doctor based in Sevagram, a town in Maharashtra, said that a team including ear, nose, and throat surgeons, ophthalmologists and neurologists was needed to treat mucormycosis. “Unfortunately, this kind of team does not exist in rural areas,” Kalantari said. Meanwhile special hospital wards will be set up in New Delhi to fight the ‘black fungus’, authorities. The disease kills more than 50% of sufferers within days. In some cases, eyes and upper jaws are removed by surgeons to stop the spread of the infection. New Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said special wards would be set up at three hospitals to handle the increased number of black fungus cases. He also vowed to ensure that all patients will get the medicines they need, with anti-fungal drugs the latest shortage to hit India’s already stretched healthcare system. There are more than 200 black fungus patients in New Delhi hospitals, with dozens on waiting lists for beds, according to media reports. Indian social media has been flooded with requests from relatives of mucormycosis sufferers pleading for help to find medicines. The Rajasthan and Telangana states have declared black fungus epidemics.