Black Fungus | Children
Covid-19: Three children in Mumbai lose one eye to Black Fungus Disease
Mumbai/IBNS: The doctors in Mumbai had to remove an eye of each of three children infected with Mucormycosis or Black Fungus, according to media reports.
The three children aged 4, 6 and 14 were operated upon in two hospitals in Mumbai.
While the first two children are not diabetic, the 14 year old child is, according to an NDTV report.
A 16-year-old developed diabetes after recovering from Covid-19 and a part of her stomach was found infected with black fungus, doctor said.
Dr Jesal Sheth, Senior Consultant Paediatrician at Fortis Hospital, said the hospital received two diabetic children, who got infected with Black Fungus.
One of the eyes of the 14-year-old girl turned black within 48 hours of admission to the hospital and the fungus started spreading to her nose. She was treated before the virus could reach her brain and prove fatal.
"Luckily, it did not reach the brain. We treated her for six weeks; unfortunately, she lost her eye," Dr Sheth said, NDTV quoted.
The 16-year-old child was not infected and healthy even a month ago and had recovered from Covid.
She approached the hospital with diabetes and doctors noticed that her intestines were bleeding.
"We did an angiography and found that Black Fungus had infected blood vessels near her stomach," Dr Sheth said, the report added.
The children aged 4 and 6 were admitted to Mumbai's KBH Bachooali Ophthalmic and ENT Hospital.
"Black Fungus was spreading in their eyes and if we had not removed the eyes, their life would have been in danger. They were already blind in one eye and it was hurting them badly. One child came to us in December last year. The second case came during the second wave," said Dr Prithesh Shetty, Oculoplasty, Ocular Oncology and Ocular Prosthetic at the hospital, the report informed.
Black Fungus infection needs to be detected and treated early as it is extremely aggressive and life threatening.
Doctors can scrap out the dead tissue and remove nose, eyes or even their jaw to stop its spread to the brain.
When the body is infected with coronavirus, a dangerous phenomenon called a cytokine storm can set in, causing inflammation of internal organs and in many cases damage them. In order to stop the body from going into overdrive, the doctors have been prescribing steroids which in turn weaken the body's immune system and increase sugar level, which allows fungal infections to affect the body.
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