Punjab: Health Department directed to ensure medicines for treatment of Black Fungus available at all government hospitals and rural PHCs

Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], May 20 (ANI): A day after declaring Black Fungus, also known as Mucor Mycosis, as a notified disease in Punjab, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday directed the Health Department to ensure that all necessary medicines are made available to every government hospital, including those in the rural areas.
The department has also been asked to depute doctors at Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the villages to ensure early detection and treatment of Black Fungus, which several rural areas across the nation reported.
Stressing on how early detection of the disease could prevent it from being fatal, the Chief Minister asked the COVID expert team, headed by Dr KK Talwar, to ensure that doctors in the L3 facilities of all government hospitals are directed on the proper treatment of COVID patients.
He also asked the team to keep a check on the irrational use of steroids, which has been identified as the main cause of Black Fungus, especially among diabetic patients.
"Excessive use of steroids in COVID treatment is causing problems," Dr Talwar told the COVID review meeting, chaired by the Chief Minister. He said the doctors were being guided to use substitutes and the Expert Group was trying to finalise a line of treatment with substitutes and alternates.
The Chief Minister had also asked Dr. Talwar and his team to analyse why the patients were returning to hospitals after recovering from COVID.
The state had not reported any case of black fungus in the first wave of the pandemic, even though several other states reported similar incidents.
The Chief Minister has, however, made it clear that this should not be taken as precedence and that the situation could change at any moment, which necessitates strict preventive measures.
He said that this was the reason his government had notified the disease under the Epidemic Act on Wednesday, even though no such guidelines were issued by the Centre by then. (ANI)