Antibiotics for Covid-19 cases worsen India’s crisis
Bloomberg
May 26 |
Updated on
May 26, 2021
Fear of missing a secondary infection and lack of specific therapy leading to overprescription: study
Excessive use of the world’s most potent antibiotics has stoked drug-resistant infections in India for years. Now the country’s Covid crisis has put the calamity into hyperdrive.
A first look at how many patients hospitalised during India’s first coronavirus wave also developed bacterial and fungal infections found that a small but alarming proportion harbour germs that resist multiple drugs.
Doctors battling to save lives amid a dearth of effective treatments are turning to the medicines they have on hand often antibiotics that aren’t used in other countries for Covid-19. What’s more, the chaos of overrun hospitals means staff can’t always take precautions to ensure infections don’t spread from one patient to the next.
New Delhi: Rare, life-threatening COVID-19 complications appear to be escalating in India, creating a fresh wave of critical medical challenges in a country that has already seen short supplies of oxygen and other basic needs.
Pharmacists are warning of a shortage of a crucial drug to treat an invasive fungal infection preying on patients with weakened immune systems and diabetes. An uptick in cases across India of a dangerous inflammatory syndrome in children - also seen in the US and Europe at the height of their outbreaks - is a harbinger of a potentially deadly spate of the paediatric illness in the coming weeks.
New Delhi: Rare, life-threatening COVID-19 complications appear to be escalating in India, creating a fresh wave of critical medical challenges in a country that has already seen short supplies of oxygen and other basic needs.
Pharmacists are warning of a shortage of a crucial drug to treat an invasive fungal infection preying on patients with weakened immune systems and diabetes. An uptick in cases across India of a dangerous inflammatory syndrome in children - also seen in the US and Europe at the height of their outbreaks - is a harbinger of a potentially deadly spate of the paediatric illness in the coming weeks.
Fungal epidemic, sick babies deepen India s COVID-19 misery gulfnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gulfnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 has overwhelmed India’s already creaky health infrastructure, with hospitals running out of beds and oxygen, while critical drugs are being sold on a thriving black market.
Social media platforms have been flooded with SOS messages from people pleading for oxygen cylinders and hospital admissions as authorities struggled to cope with the scale of the crisis.
Amid the shortage, many places of worship, including mosques and gurdwaras, across India have come forward to help needy patients and a number of them have been turned into care centres for COVID patients.
Mufti Arif Falahi, head of a seminary in the western city of Baroda, has taken on a different job over the past weeks: saving lives.