Mucormycosis : Rare fungal infection linked to corona virus
An upgrowing concern amid COVID-19 — BLACK FUNGUS
Here’s everything you need to know about this disease.
Mucormycosis is a rare fungal infection caused by molds which are called mucormycetes. It was earlier called zygomycosis. This fungus is airborne and is always free in the environment around us, which is also known as ubiquitous in nature.
So the question arises — Why couldn’t it attack us before? What kept us safe? The answer is OUR IMMUNITY.
It happens mostly to the people with severe low immunity or to the patients taking prescribed immunosuppressants. Diabetic patients are also prone to this infection and those who recently had any organ transplant. People with healthy and normal lifestyle are literally safe from this infection, so there’s nothing to worry.
It has a seriously high mortality rate, which is 50%. That means 50 out of 100 infected individuals succumb to death. For now, this is under control but it can take a serious turn at any moment.
Now you wanna know if you’re safe or not. Don’t you?
Nasal congestion, nasal Discharge, sinus pain, fever, headache, swelling in the area of nose and eyes, dry black crust in nose — These are the mild symptom for mucormycosis i.e. it is still treatable.
Serious symptom include bluish discolouration of skin near eye sockets due to lack of oxygen in that area. If remain untreated, it could turn to worse and could lead to the resection of eyes.
This can cause necrosis (tissue death) among the infected areas and can also damage facial structure which results in facial disfiguration. It can also harm your brain and can affect your cerebral activity.
Diagnosis can be done by immediate biopsy and confirmed by microbiological test. The patient should admitted in hospital to avoid any other complication.
The only treatment for this deadly disease include antifungal medication and symptom management.
Why is it affecting COVID- 19 patients?
They’re being given several steroids in order to control the cytokine storm(also called hypercytokinemia — hyperactive immune reaction of the body attacking its own tissue and cells resulting in complications). The given steroids lowers the immunity of the patient recovering from COVID-19 infection which makes him/her highly vulnerable to other rare infections which couldn’t attack a healthy person. One of such infection is mucromycosis (Black Fungi).
Usually the spread of this disease is around 2–4 weeks but after the infection from corona virus, the spread time limit has reduced to only 2–3 days.
If young people still consider of it as a ridiculous joke, they better not. There has been a case reported in Delhi of a 32 year old young aged COVID patient. Some infected people had vision loss, while in some nose and jaw bones were removed to prevent further infection in nearby areas. Among 13 cases of mucromycosis reported in Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi five of those have succumbed to death so far. The same disease was also reported in Ahmedabad, Gujarat with five cases and two of them had already lost their lives while two losing their eyesight permanently.
With so many unfortunate deaths already, one should be serious now about contracting this virus. Earlier, it was only virus attacking our respiratory system but now with other complications, it looks like it has taken a different turn already. You may fight with the virus but other related infections are far more deadly.
So to break the chain
Take this pain!
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