With over 30 instances of mucormycosis (black fungus) among serving troops and veterans, Delhi’s two top Army hospitals, the Army R&R and Army Base Hospital, are running low on life-saving medicine Amphotericin B. According to India Today, the two hospitals have less than half of the funds needed to treat the patients.
“Many lives, especially those of serving frontline soldiers, are at risk,” an Army doctor at the Research & Referral hospital warned, “since the hospital is still waiting for the basic minimum shipment to battle mounting black fungus infections.”
The dramatic increase in cases is part of a larger outbreak of the fast worsening and frequently fatal fungal illness that has infected thousands of Covid patients across India, prompting the sickness to be declared an epidemic under the Epidemic Act.
While the transmission of the fungus is still being investigated, it has been linked to the second wave’s usage of unclean oxygen equipment, with the majority of those afflicted being diabetics or those who are otherwise immunocompromised. The usage of zinc supplements and out-of-control steroid prescriptions has also been linked to the fungus’s ability to infect people.
The government had been informed of the shortage, according to a senior Ministry of Defence officer, and steps were being made to satisfy the Amphotericin B demand as soon as possible. It is also believed that word has gone out from the hospitals to the families of mucormycosis patients that everything is being done to guarantee that treatment and medicine administration do not suffer any delays. Many hospital employees, though, are concerned about the dangerous position.
An Army officer at the Army Base Hospital said, “I’m reminded of my time on the [Siachen] glacier in the eighties when we would wait with bated breath for every jerrycan of fuel that was dropped from a helicopter. We literally survived from jerrycan to jerrycan. It was something like what we are seeing here now.”
