The black fungus nightmare facing India’s coronavirus patients
- Eye-removals and other life-changing operations are taking place around the clock as surgeons struggle to cope with exponential rise in mucormycosis infections
- The fast-moving infection, driven by use of steroids and oxygen in coronavirus treatments, can take hold just days after a patient thinks they have recovered
On being told, on a recent sultry morning in Mumbai, that both her eyes would need to be removed, Neelam Bakshi, 47, could not cry. Her eyes were too stiff, dry, and swollen from the ‘black fungus’, mucormycosis.
“It took a while for my words to sink in. Then she said simply ‘I won’t see my children again’ and went quiet,” said Dr Renuka Bradoo, the specialist treating Bakshi.
The deadly and often disfiguring disease is usually exceedingly rare. But as a second wave of coronavirus infections sweep India, Maharashtra – the state worst affected by Covid-19 – must now cope with an explosion of mucormycosis cases too.
I told her either it’s your eyes or your life
Dr Bradoo, who heads the ear, nose and throat (ENT) department at Sion Hospital, said there had been an “exponential” rise in cases of the fungal infection, calling it “an epidemic within a pandemic”.
Bradoo’s colleague, eye surgeon Dr Akshay Nair, said he had scooped out more eyes than he ever thought possible since the second wave erupted at the start of April. “It’s a nightmare inside a nightmare,” he said.
Normally, mucormycosis affects patients who are immunocompromised owing to uncontrolled diabetes or certain cancers. The current outbreak, though, has attacked Covid-19 patients with diabetes who have been put on steroids to control the virus which in turn has pushed up their sugar levels and compromised their immune systems.
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After recovering from the virus, they are discharged and go home only to find, a few days later, one or two strange, but not too alarming, symptoms – a slight discharge from the nose, a headache, a slight numbness in the cheekbone.