The fungal infection mainly affects people who are on medication for other health complexities that impair the ability to fight environmental pathogens, according to the Indian Medical Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Mucormycosis, the scientific name for Black Fungus, is a serious and rare fungal infection found in India. This disease is affecting those who are Covid positive or post covid positive.

A mechanical engineer from Thane, a suburb of Mumbai, caught this infection while battling the viral disease. In a span of a month, the fast-spreading fungus had eaten into a large portion of his facial tissue, including his right eye and the palate.

“He has undergone three surgeries, lost vision from one eye permanently and it is going to be difficult for him to talk or eat due to the removal of the palate,” Deshmukh’s elder brother Makarand said.

Doctors in India have been recording a big spurt in cases of aggressive, hard-to-treat fungal infection.

While mucormycosis cases have been seen in the country earlier, the current increase in infections is among people infected with COVID-19 and those who have recovered from the disease.

The numbers are far above cases before COVID-19 came into India.

“It’s a dangerous situation,” said Dr. Milind Navalakhe, an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgeon at Global Hospital in Mumbai who conducted the palate-removal surgery on Deshmukh.

The western state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, has recorded about 2,000 cases and eight fatalities due to mucormycosis so far.

What causes mucormycosis / Black Fungus?

IMPORTANT: Use of cow dung as a COVID Cure could be causing deadly Black Fungus disease (Mucormycosis) in India.

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It is caused by a group of mould called mucormycetes. These fungi live in the environment, particularly in soil and in decaying organic matter, such as leaves, compost piles, or rotten wood - according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

When someone breathes these fungal spores, they are likely to get an infection that commonly affects the sinuses or lungs.

Medical experts say mucormycosis is an “opportunistic infection” – it latches on to people who are battling illnesses or are on medications that lower the body’s ability to fight infections.

Patients with COVID-19 have weak immunity and a large number of them are put on steroids in order to control a hyperimmune response, thus making them susceptible to other fungal infections such as mucormycosis, say, experts.

The majority of mucormycosis infections have been seen in COVID-19 patients with diabetes or those with underlying and undetected high blood sugar.

Excessive use of steroids and antibiotics in India further allows such infection to spread easily.

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#Mucormycosis or `#BlackFungus` has been observed in a number of #COVID19 patients recently.

Take a look to know what it is, Symptoms and How to reduce the risk of #Mucormycosis pic.twitter.com/DZ6jlGn3iB

— PIB WCD (@PIBWCD) May 12, 2021

Is it contagious?

Doctors in India’s capital New Delhi have also started witnessing a spurt in cases of mucormycosis too.

The city, home to nearly 20 million people, is reeling under a vicious second wave of COVID-19, with doctors anticipating a larger outbreak of fungal infections.

“We are seeing two to three times higher numbers of mucormycosis cases,” said Dr. Neha Gupta, internal medicine and infectious disease specialist at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram, a suburb of the Indian capital.

SYMPTOMS

Early symptoms of the infection include obstruction in the nose, swelling in the eye or cheeks, and black dry crusts in the nose, smelly black nasal discharge, face numbness, fever, cold, one-sided headache, swelling or numbness, toothache, and loosening of teeth. And if neglected the infection can even spread to the eyes and then the brain, making it fatal.

Many of these cases are mucormycosis of the maxilla or upper jaw, which leads to the entire jaw detaching from the skull, in severe cases.

 TREATMENT FOR MUCORMYCOSIS?

Treatment involves surgically removing all dead and infected tissue and administering a course of antifungal therapy. Yogesh Dabholkar, an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Mumbai’s DY Patil Hospital, told AFP that the drugs used to treat those infected with the fungus were expensive.

Dos:

Control hyperglycemia

Monitor blood glucose level post-Covid-19 discharge and in patients with diabetes

Use steroids judiciously. Timing, doses, and duration should be correct

Use clean, sterile water for humidifiers during oxygen therapy

Use antibiotics or antifungals judiciously

Don’ts:

Miss warning signs and symptoms

Consider all the cases with a blocked nose as cases of bacterial sinusitis, particularly in the context of immunosuppression and/or Covid-19 patients on immunomodulators

Hesitate to seek aggressive investigations, as appropriate (KOH staining & microscopy, culture, MALDI-TOF), for detecting fungal etiology