Cases of “black fungus” in India have risen to 10,000, the junior minister responsible for chemicals and fertilizers on Tuesday.
The state’s health minister Rajesh Tope said 2,245 cases of the disease have been recorded in Maharashtra alone.
Meanwhile, several states faced a shortage of the drug Amphotericin B, which is used in the treatment of black fungus.
At least eight states, including Maharashtra, have declared black fungus a notifiable disease in accordance with state government directives to notify all cases.
Mucormycosis, colloquially known as black fungus, is a serious fungal infection that was seen in far smaller numbers in India before Covid-19, too. But it is now affecting post-Covid patients in large numbers.
Thus far, this surge has been attributed to the improper use of steroids to treat Covid-19 patients, coupled with poorly managed diabetes. But steroids in themselves are not the villains.
“Systemic (oral and intravenous) corticosteroids have been proven to reduce mortality in Covid-19,” Lancelot Pinto, consultant pulmonologist at Mumbai’s Hinduja Hospital, told Quartz. “The largest trial, Recovery, which proved this beyond a reasonable doubt among individuals who had low oxygen levels, used them in a dose of 6 milligrams Dexa per day for up to 10 days.”
Steroids are commonly utilized in orthopaedic and pulmonary illnesses, in addition to Covid-19. In India, the issue is not with the medicine itself, but with how it is prescribed.
Furthermore, there is no stringent prescription check in India, and most drugs—even those that require a prescription—can be purchased over-the-counter.
Other infections are prevalent following a viral sickness because viruses weaken immunity. Post-viral bacterial infections, for example, are fairly prevalent. However, such infections have a high chance of developing resistant to medicines.
Another likely cause could be the improper use of oxygen cylinders—with unclean masks or without purified water in the apparatus—which became a norm in most cities grappling with a hospital bed shortage.
