Amidst declining graph of the novel coronavirus infection in Punjab, the disease of Mucormycosis, commonly known as ‘Black Fungus’, has started raising its head in the State, resulting in 27 casualties, out of total 222 cases reported till date.
On Thursday, the state reported 34 cases of Black Fungus, including a maximum seven from Kapurthala; and four deaths — one each from Bathinda, Barnala, Fatehgarh Sahib, and Kapurthala.
On the other hand, the state’s COVID-19 positivity rate on Thursday came down to 5.43 percent, with 3,914 fresh cases registered in the past 24 hours besides 178 deaths. With this, the state’s infection tally has reached and death toll at 14,014.
It was after a gap of more than a month, that the state reported less than 4000 cases. It breached the 4000-mark on April 17 when the state registered 4431 cases in a day.
Besides improvement in the positivity rate, the state’s recovery rate has increased to 88.81 percent with total recoveries reaching 4,93,854 and active cases have come down to less than 50,000 and 10 percent of the state’s total positive cases.
Currently, the state has 48,231 active cases — accounting for 8.67 percent of the total positive cases — of which 358 critical patients are on ventilator support, while 943 patients are at critical care Level-III facilities, and 5,809 patients are on oxygen support.
Highest 17 of the day’s deaths each were reported from Ludhiana; followed by 15 from Faridkot; 13 each from Sangrur, Amritsar and Bathinda; 12 each from Ferozepur, Jalandhar, and Patiala; 11 from Fazilka, among others.
Among districts, Ludhiana recorded maximum 411 fresh cases, while Bathinda registred the highest positivity rate of 10.15 percent reporting 344 fresh cases in a day. As many as 10 districts recorded higher positivity rate than that of the state.
Even as the State is showing improvement in COVID-19 situation, the black fungus is sending alarm bells ringing amongst the state health authorities.
Among the total 222 cases, 192 cases are from Punjab, while 30 belonged to other States including Ambala, Delhi, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jammu, Kurukshetra, Meerut, Nanded, among others. Twenty-five of the total 27 fatalities due to black fungus were from Punjab; while two — one each from Nanded and Shahjahanpur — were from other states.
Among the districts, maximum 33 cases and highest five deaths were reported from Ludhiana, followed by 22 cases from Bathinda, 19 from Jalandhar, 15 from Patiala, 13 from Kapurthala, 12 from Amritsar, among others. Notably, these were the state’s most affected districts of the COVID-19.
Dr KK Talwar, Punjab Government’s Health Adviser, said that the black fungus disease was in existence earlier also but its cases have now become so alarming because the rate is very high.
“This is caused by a fungus named Mucormycosis…and we commonly call it black fungus. This was in existence earlier also but the cases were too less…In PGI, about 40-50 cases were reported in a year but now, 50 cases have come to light in a month’s time only,” he said.
Making it clear that black fungus could happen to anyone, Dr Talwar said that the COVID-19 patients are more prone and everyone need to take precaution while treating them.
“Persons who have COVID or who have recovered, from it; or who have diabetes…When they were given so much of steroids as the doctors have believed that these steroids benefit some patients during their recovery from COVID, it lead to this infection,” he said.
He added, it has been noticed that some doctors use lot of steroids during treatment of COVID patients, even if it was not needed. “So, we have issued guidelines and asked the doctors to give the treatment accordingly,” said Dr Talwar.
It has been learnt that nearly 20 percent of the total cases of black fungus reported from the State have no COVID history.