New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Saturday asked all States and UTs to be on alert following the increasing number of deaths due to mucormycosis and Covid19. In a meeting chaired by health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, the Centre has expressed concern that an increasing number of deaths (4457) took place due to mucormycosis in the month of April-May this year. A senior health ministry official privy to the meeting told ETV Bharat that Bhushan has suggested maintaining continuous surveillance on Covid prone areas. The health secretary also reiterated to impose local restrictions whereever Covid positivity rate was found to be more than 10 per cent.
In the month of April-May, the country witnessed an increased trajectory of Covid19 cases and deaths. The health ministry said that during the same period, an increased number of mucormycosis cases were reported from many States and UTs. As of July, a total of 46,344 cases of mucormycosis have been reported by States and UTs of which 19,832 are under treatment and 4457 have died.
The health ministry said that since January last year as many as 4,14,482 Covid19 deaths took place in India with Maharashtra leading the list with 1,27, 097 fatalities followed by Karnataka 36,197 and Tamil Nadu 33,752. Ironically, during the second wave of the pandemic, the country witnessed maximum casualties with Maharashtra registering 69,709 deaths in the last four months between March-June. Karnataka registered 22,603 deaths and Tamil Nadu registered the third-highest deaths of 20,013 during the same period.
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The health ministry said that the Centre has deployed 166 central teams into 33 states and UTs to support them in containing Covid19pandemic. As many as 241,403 people have died due to Covid19 from March-June.
Aware of the fact that oxygen scarcity was a major issue during the second wave of the pandemic, the government in a bid to fast track the availability of medical oxygen in rural and peri-urban areas, more than 18,000 oxygen concentrators have been allocated to various States. Talking to ETV Bharat on the situation that developed following increasing deaths due to Covid19 and mucormycosis, senior health expert and president of Asian Society for Emergency Dr Tamorish Kole said that mucormycosis became a cause of concern during the second wave which claimed more than 4000 people.
"Fungal epidemics generally manifests after disasters and epidemics when there is a large number of patients, particularly immunocompromised," he said. Dr Kole said that lessons learnt from the second wave and mucormycosis infections must be kept in mind while we prepare and respond to the third wave. "The third wave is inevitable and our actions will define its impact. We need to vaccinate as many as possible, judicious use of medications particularly steroids, stockpiling of required resources like oxygen, drugs and medical supplies and train an allocate frontline staff locally and state-wise," said Dr Kole.
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