Centre, state not taking measures to contain mucor: HC

Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Wednesday came down heavily on the Centre and state governments for their failure to take effective steps to tackle mucormycosis.
Orally observing that the patients are dying in the entire state due to this disease and some are losing out vital organs like eyes, the bench said the current situation demands war-like response, but it was found wanting.
“Unless immediate steps are taken, the situation is not going to improve. We urge both governments to initiate immediate measures to increase production capacity of the Indian companies manufacturing ‘Amphotericin B Lipid complex’. Whatever help is needed must be made available by both authorities. The entire machinery can be pressed into service to augment the production, if required,” a division bench comprising justices Sunil Shukre and Avinash Gharote said.
“We hope that centre and state will initiate urgent measures on this front and bring badly required relief to the patients, struggling for survival because of these infections,” the bench said before adjourning the hearing of a suo motu PIL till next Wednesday.
Censuring both governments on their affidavits where they mentioned that steps were being taken to improve the situation, the judges observed that “HC and patients were always put on the waiting list”.
“Patients are losing eyes, tongues, cheeks and other body parts. With affidavits you put a bait before us that some help is going to come. We waited endlessly, but no steps were taken. We will say, let the patients fend for themselves. Show by action that you are serious about what you are saying by increasing amphotericin allocation to Maharashtra.”
Explaining concern over the growing number of black fungus patients in the city, the judges said there were 1,584 registered patients till May 29, of which 830 were operated upon so far. “Of them, eyeballs of 74 were removed to stop the infection from spreading, while 69 have succumbed to the deadly disease. These are extremely alarming figures, which shows that the infection is no longer a rare one, but assuming a form of an epidemic.”
Stressing on that there have been reports coming from different parts of the country which are equally alarming so far as reports of Aspergillosis and Candida Auris fungus are concerned, the bench said if immediate measures aren’t taken, it would take severe form of epidemic in entire India as well.
“This is the reason why we have been repeatedly saying that the Centre and state, community of experts and society in general make immediate efforts to contain the spread of fungal infection. Those could be in the form of maintaining individual cleanliness and hygiene through improvement of immunity levels by remaining on good diet and also keeping contributing ailments like hyperglycaemia, diabetes and the like under control to make available in sufficient quantities drugs required for treating these infections,” the judges observed.