Mucormycosis: Punjab notifies 'Black Fungus' as disease under Epidemic Diseases Act
A day after the Punjab government notified Mucormycosis (Black Fungus) as a disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday directed the Health Department to ensure that the necessary medicines for treating the same are made available to all the government hospitals, including in the rural areas.
He also asked the Department to depute doctors at the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the villages of Punjab to ensure early detection and treatment of the Black Fungus or Mucormycosis, which has been reported from many states, in the rural areas.
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Captain Amarinder Singh asked the Covid Expert team headed by Dr. KK Talwar to ensure that doctors in the L3 facilities of all government hospitals are directed on the proper treatment of Covid patients to check irrational use of steroids, which had been identified as the main cause of this disease, especially among diabetic patients.
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Excessive use of steroids in Covid treatment was causing problems, Dr. Talwar told the Covid review meeting chaired by the Chief Minister.
He said the doctors were being guided to use substitutes and the Expert Group was trying to finalise a line of treatment with substitutes and alternates.
The Chief Minister also asked Dr. Talwar and his team to analyse why patients were returning to hospitals even after recovering from Covid.
Notably, in the first phase, the state did not report any cases of black fungus, even though the incidence of the same was reported from several other states.
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