In recent months, India has struggled with an outbreak of the fungal infection mucormycosis. The fungal infection often affects the nose and eyes, but sometimes also the brain.
The combination of covid infection, weakened immune system and the killing of both good and bad bacteria by antibiotics, leaves sick patients extremely vulnerable to mold and fungus.
“It’s an unfortunate” perfect storm “for these organisms, and we see it happening,” Tom Chiller, chief of mycotic disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told The Guardian.
– Serious
– It looks awful
In India, more than 40,000 people have now been infected with the fungal infection and more than 3,000 deaths.
Mucormycosis has several distinct symptoms, which make it quickly recognizable in patients.
– Mucormycosis is very visible. The patients look awful. They have these black areas on their face and they lose their sight. It requires major surgery. It looks awful, says Darius Armstrong-James, associate professor of respiratory diseases at Imperial College London to The Guardian.
BLACK FUNGUS: A patient is operated on to have mucomycosis removed. Photo: Prakash Singh / AFP
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The fungal infection, also known as “black fungus”, most often affects patients with a weakened immune system, poorly regulated diabetes or leukemia.
– For some covid-19 patients who become seriously ill, there is an increased risk of various secondary infections, including fungal infections, but this is probably mostly due to the serious disease state and the strain on the immune system, assistant health director Espen Rostrup Nakstad has previously stated to Dagbladet.
No cases of severe mucomycosis have been reported in Norway.
Difficult to diagnose
However, it is more challenging for doctors to diagnose the fungal infection Aspergillus, which has also been seen in covid patients.
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– It is difficult to diagnose Aspergillus in covid cases because it involves sampling fluid from the lungs. This is routine in Europe and North America, but not elsewhere, explains David Denning, Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the University of Manchester. The Guardian.
Several of the doctors are critical of performing fluid sampling due to the risk of infection.
Concerned about “Delta plus”
In addition to reluctant doctors, the symptoms of Aspergillus are relatively similar to the covid symptoms – this makes Denning fear there may be high dark numbers.
Chief physician in infectious disease medicine Liv Hesstvedt at Ullevål hospital has previously informed Dagbladet that there are cases of Aspergillus in Norway.
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