Telangana: Fungal infections, silent killer in diabetic Covid-19 patients

HYDERABAD: If you develop a nose block, running nose with blood, pain in the cheek bone or eyes just days after recovering from Covid-19, it may be a warning sign of a life threatening mucormycosis infection.
This has mainly been seen in diabetics who recover from Covid-19. The infection takes 3-7 days to infect the brain, after which saving the patient is impossible say doctors. With each corporate hospital in the city seeing 3-4 new cases everyday, the number of cases since the start of the pandemic is estimated to run into thousands.
As the symptoms of this infection mimic those of Covid-19 and common flu, people ignore it and end up missing out on treatment. “If unattended, this infection, which originates in the nose, can quickly affect the eyes resulting in loss of eyesight. If it progresses to the brain, it reaches a point of no return. Sometimes the progress from eye to brain can happen in a few hours.
The usage of steroids is the reason behind this,” said Dr K Rambabu, senior consultant ENT surgeon Apollo hospital, Jubilee hills citing a recent case of a 20-year-old from Guntur who succumbed to the infection.
Another thing hampering treatment is that there is little awareness about the infection even among doctors. “Since the awareness is less even in medical fraternity, many physicians tend to overlook the symptoms,” said Dr Sampurna Ghosh, consultant ENT, head and neck surgeon, Medicover Hospitals.