Hearing loss, organ failure, fungus, gangrene: as India’s coronavirus hell eases, new threats emerge

Name: The black fungus nightmare facing India’s coronavirus patients
Uploaded: 2021-06-08T09:00:16.000Z
Duration: 1 min 46 s
Description: The black fungus nightmare facing India’s coronavirus patients

Symptoms and complications not typically seen in Covid-19 patients have been linked by doctors in India to the so-called delta variant

In an alarming development, it also appears to be infecting more children – and causing a rare inflammatory syndrome that attacks their vital organs

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Quarantine centres have been set up across the country to help the many children who have tested positive amid the country’s second wave. Photo: DPA

Amrit Dhillonin New Delhi

Published: 5:00pm, 8 Jun 2021Updated: 8:20pm, 8 Jun 2021

India’s ferocious second wave of coronavirus infections is thankfully receding, but the country’s doctors are now grappling with a new threat: a devastating surge in complications among people who previously recovered from Covid-19.

Hearing impairment, severe gastric upsets and blood clots leading to gangrene – symptoms not typically seen in Covid-19 patients – have been linked by doctors in India to the so-called delta variant that drove the country’s second wave.

Fungal infections are also running rampant. More than 28,000 cases of mucormycosis, a serious infection also known as black fungus that affects the sinuses and brain, have been reported in India since the pandemic began. Increasing cases of aspergillosis and candidiasis – known locally as white and yellow fungus, respectively – are also being recorded.

One man in Ghaziabad reportedly recovered from Covid-19 only to die in hospital of septicaemia last month after contracting all three fungal infections.

Without immediate treatment, any fungal infection can be fatal – especially in patients with suppressed immune systems. Worse, India is suffering an acute shortage of the antifungal medications needed for treatment.

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The black fungus nightmare facing India’s coronavirus patients

Other complications being reported among those who have recovered from Covid-19 include stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, hearing loss and joint pain. Organ failure is another rare but serious complication, as is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.