More than 10 states have made mucormycosis, commonly known as black fungus infection, a notified disease. But as cases haven’t decreased, the health experts are in a race to find out the causes behind the rising curve of the disease in India.
Doctors suspect the use of excess amounts of zinc and iron supplements could be one of the factors behind the black fungus cases in India, apart from the known reasons of steroid use and diabetes.
Mucormycosis is a rare disease, even though India sees a bulk of the disease with over 80 times the infection rate than the global average. The prevalence of the disease is thought to be because of a bigger presence of the fungi species, mucormycetes, which are naturally found in the environment. The species is usually found growing on the soil, usually near decaying matter and animal dung.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), patients who are diabetic, under long-term corticosteroid use, getting medicines via injections and have too much iron in their blood are more likely to get the disease as they are immunocompromised.
Beyond these risk factors, medical healthcare professionals in India believe that there are other contributing factors leading to the sudden increase of black fungus cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While the primary reason is the use of steroids and diabetes, there has been a lot of debate in the last two days in the medical community on the use of zinc by crores of Indians for months on end. Other hypotheses suggest the use of iron and the failure to use sterile water in oxygen concentrators,” Dr Shashank Joshi, senior endocrinologist from Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai, who is working on a research paper on the subject, told TOI.
Supplements like Vitamin C, D and zinc have seen a massive increase in usage as people all over the country have started taking them in order to boost immunity. While it is true that these supplements can boost the immunity of people who are deficient in the micronutrients, there is no proof that they help with preventing or treating COVID-19.
That is why an expert panel from the American National Institute of Health had advised against taking more than the daily dietary requirement of zinc for preventing or treating COVID-19.
There is old research that indicates that the presence of zinc helps the growth of fungi, especially the mucormycetes species. This is why many doctors are calling for necessary studies and clinical trials to be conducted to finally understand the link of zinc to black fungus and to decide if millions of Indians should continue taking the supplement in the middle of the pandemic.
(Edited by : Shoma)
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