India’s Covid-19 pandemic is about to get much more complicated.
A crushing second wave of Covid-19, when the country is persistently seeing around 350,000 new infections a day, has
led to a massive increase in cases that require strong medication. Now, the long-term effects of such drugs are leading to cases of a rare fungal infection, which can even prove fatal in some instances.
Mucormycosis, colloquially known as black fungus, is an infection from the mucormycetes group of fungi. It is abundantly found in natural environments, especially in soil. Though rare, this infection has been around for decades, but only impacts those with health conditions and significantly weakened immune systems because of the use of steroids.
Over 100 workers at the Foxconn iPhone factory in Chennai caught coronavirus. While Apple's other contractor Wistron's plant in Bengaluru was shut for the first week of May after 60 Covid-19 cases were reported.
May 12, 2021
The second wave of Covid-19 in India quickly went from being a healthcare crisis to a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of patients gasped for breath in the absence of enough high-flow oxygen, which is an effective treatment for the disease.
For more than a month now, the oxygen crisis in the country has been a tug-of-war between the Narendra Modi government, state governments, hospitals, and oxygen manufacturers. In several areas, individuals have been left to run from pillar to post in search of oxygen cylinders for their family and friends.
All stakeholders have their own reasons for why Indian doctors still don’t have enough supply of the essential gas to treat their patients.
REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
The vaccine prince.
May 8, 2021
India’s “vaccine prince” Adar Poonawalla rose to fame in 2020 when he became the only Indian billionaire to put his weight behind an international Covid-19 vaccine. But since then, he has made headlines for statements that are at times confusing and contradictory.
Poonawalla, CEO of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing firm Serum Institute of India (SII), last year struck a deal with AstraZeneca to manufacture and stockpile its Covid-19 vaccine. These doses could be sold in India and to other countries under contracts with AstraZeneca. SII was also responsible for the India-specific bridging study for the shots to test its efficacy in the local population.