BLACK FUNGUS: IS ANOTHER PANDEMIC PEEPING AND THREATENING THE HUMAN RACE?

Tanveer Hossain, Mir Shahariar Kamal, Mohammad Ashraful Islam, Sonia Ferdousy, Md. Rafat Tahsin, Jakir Ahmed Chowdhury, Tahmina Akter, Fahima Aktar, Abu Asad Chowdhury, Shaila Kabir, Md. Shah Amran*

ABSTRACT

Mucormycosis is an angio-invasive fungal infection, which is associated with high morbidity and mortality. It is a life-threatening infection that occurs in patients who are immunocompromised because of suffering from low oxygen, diabetic ketoacidosis, cancer, neutropenia, organ transplantation, iron overload in patients taking deferoxamine, kidney failure, heart disease, liver disease. The overuse of steroids and other immune-suppressing medicines, and prolonged hospitalization with mechanical ventilation during the Covid-19 pandemic are also considered as instigating factor for black fungus. The current treatment procedure against severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is the systemic use of glucocorticoids which weakens the immune system of patients. Opportunistic fungal infections are of major concern for them. Mucormycosis is a rare infection because the immune system of a healthy person is able to prevent this infection but COVID-19 associated with mucormycosis is noticeably increased specially in patients who have been recovered from COVID-19 and are treated with glucocorticoids. This secondary fungal infection is a key factor fueling India’s COVID-19 second wave. The new mutant of COVID-19 with this fungal infection, promoted the death rate which has become excessively higher than previous as India announced it as epidemic. Due to the same geographical condition and neighboring country, Bangladesh is also now at a higher risk.

Keywords: Black fungus, Mucormycosis, Pandemic, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Weak immune system, Risk.