Ensure enough drugs at every govt hospital to treat Mucormycosis: Punjab CM tells heath dept

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has directed the health department to ensure that every government hospital in Punjab has an adequate supply of medicines to treat Mucormycosis

Chandigarh: A day after the Punjab government notified Mucormycosis as a disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1857, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday directed the health department to ensure that every government hospital in Punjab has an adequate supply of medicines to treat the fungal infection.

He also asked the department to depute doctors at Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in villages to ensure early detection and treatment of Mucormycosis, also known as black fungus, as many cases of the infection are reported from rural areas.

Stressing that early detection of the infection could prevent it from turning fatal, Singh asked the COVID-19 expert team headed by Dr KK Talwar to ensure that doctors in L3 facilities of all government hospitals are trained on the proper treatment of COVID-19 patients so that irrational use of steroids is prevented. Excessive steroids administered to COVID-19 patients has been identified as the main cause of Mucormycosis, especially among diabetic patients.

Talwar informed the chief minister that doctors were being guided to use substitutes and the Expert Group was trying to finalise a line of treatment with alternates.

Singh also asked Dr Talwar and his team to analyse why patients were returning to hospitals even after recovering from COVID-19.

Notably, even as many states reported cases of black fungus during the first wave of COVID-19, Punjab did not report any. Singh, however, made it clear that this should not be taken as precedence and the situation could change any moment, which necessitated strict preventive measures.