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Coronavirus deadly fungus rotting Covid-19 patients organs and how to spot it
It is a serious but rare fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes.
15:39, 11 MAY 2021
Updated
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A black fungus is supposedly rotting Covid-19 patients organs in India.
According to reports, the deadly fungus is presenting in Covid-19 patients being treated in Covid-stricken India.
Black fungus, the deadly post-COVID complication for India s recovered patients Read the article
By Caroline Chettri
Cases of mucormycosis, a rare fungal infection, have been on the rise in India.
Hospitals across India have been reporting cases of recovered patients contracting a rare fungal infection called
mucormycosis, or black fungus. This infection has a mortality rate of 50% and the increasing number of cases have begun to worry
medical experts in the country.
What is Mucormycosis?
fungal infection that affects
the sinuses, the brain and the lungs. The infection develops when one comes into contact with a group of moulds called
Black fungus stalks COVID-19 patients in India
A woman undergoes a check-up. The new strain of COVID-19 virus can cause patients’ blood sugars to shoot up, creating a suitable environment for mucormycosis. Copyright: Trinity Care Foundation, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). This image has been cropped.
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Shortage of antifungal drug amphotericin B adds to problems
Fears that mucormycosis cases may increase COVID-19 morbidity
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The fungus “grows incredibly fast”, says David Denning, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Manchester and chief executive of the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (Gaffi).
And “once it gets in, it just marches through the tissue and doesn’t respect tissue planes, so it can go straight from ordinary tissue through into bone, into nerves”, he told The Telegraph.
Symptoms include a stuffy and bleeding nose, pain and swelling in the eyes, blurred vision and sometimes black patches around the nose.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, mucormycosis was “extremely rare” in India, with just a few cases annually, the paper reports. But now “leading hospitals across India are now seeing multiple cases daily”.