September 2020 was when microbiologists and infectious disease experts in India first noticed signs of a fungal mold mushrooming as a secon...
September 2020 was when microbiologists and infectious disease experts in India first noticed signs of a fungal mold mushrooming as a secondary infection in Covid-19 patients. Caused by a fungus named mucorales, it was a rare infection with a high fatality rate.
Growing rapidly in immunocompromised Covid-19 patients, it was devouring their oral, nasal, and brain cavities – a form called rhinocerebral mucormycosis.
Sixteen hospitals across the country began to study the pattern. Over the next three months, they found a two-fold rise in cases of mucormycosis, commonly known as black fungus, compared to the same period in the previous year.
One of the experts who first noticed the trend, Dr Arunaloke Chakrabarti, head of the microbiology department of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, started holding video conferences and zoom meetings to alert doctors across India to the infection. “But by the time we could create enough awareness, the second wave [of Covid-19] had hit the country,” he said.
As cases of mucormycosis exploded, on May 19, the health ministry made it a notifiable disease – doctors were bound to report every case to local health authorities. For three months, India saw a shortage of the antifungal drug, Amphotericin B. Till August, over 50,000...
