Published on June 23, 2021
AHMEDABAD: On Tuesday afternoon, the Civil Hospital had 220 active patients of mucormycosis. The cases have got halved from its peak of about 450 active cases in the last week of May.
Dr J P Modi, medical superintendent of Civil Hospital, said that with drop in Covid-19 cases in the state, there is a definite fall in the mucormycosis cases, too. “On May 15, we had admitted 60 patients in a day. Now the number has got reduced to one to three,” he said, adding that since April 5, the hospital has admitted 1,217 patients of the fungal infection.
The infection is largely attributed to severe Covid-19 infection that reduces the patients’ immunity, allowing the opportunistic fungus to grow. As on Tuesday, the mucormycosis cases are now three and a half times more than the Covid-19 active cases, which now stands at 62 at Civil Hospital, one of the biggest Covid treatment centres in Gujarat.
Dr Bela Prajapati, head of the ENT department at Civil Hospital, said that the patient profile has remained almost the same. “About 80% of the patients fall in the age bracket of 45 to 59 years, male patients account for 66.6% or two-thirds of the total cases, and majority of the patients are recovered from severe Covid infection,” she said, adding that about 38% of the patients needed oxygen support during Covid treatment.
She added that several of the patients would undergo corrective surgeries after two to three months of discharge. “The severe cases where removal of eye is required has gone down in the past couple of weeks. Majority of the corrective surgeries are for the cosmetic purposes after removal of infected parts of the face,” she said.
Civil Hospital authorities said that the number of patients coming from other parts of the state and other states has also gone down in the past couple of weeks.
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