Post Covid, patient gets black fungus in lungs, yellow in eyes

Nagpur: Datta Ghate is happy that he can see with one eye. The

vision

is back in the other too but is blurred, he says. Amid patients having to get their

eyes

removed due to mucormycosis — the fungal infection affecting people post

Covid

, Ghate’s story kindles hope. It is also an eye opener, says the

doctor

who treated him.

Covid has led to a spike in

mucor

infections, which is loosely known as black fungus, though there have been cases of white fungus or candida too. Ghate was infected by what is known as aspergillus — or yellow fungus, in loose terms. This may be the first post-Covid case of yellow fungus affecting the eye in Vidarbha, says the doctor. In medical jargon, it was a case of endogenous endopthalmitis.

“The fungus which is normally known to affect the internal organs manifested in the patient’s eye, which is rare. We would be reporting the case in medical journals,” said Dr Ashish Kamble, the eye surgeon attached to Kingsway Hospital. A month ago, Kamble had operated upon the patient, who also had mucor infection in the

lungs

.

Had the patient come earlier, probably both the eyes could have been saved. The fungus had affected the retina in one eye and in another both retina and macula were infected. Retina is like a screen and macula is right in the centre. There wasn’t much scope to save vision in the eye which had the macula infected too, said Kamble.

Mucor or black fungus is more aggressive and pierces through bones. As against this, aspergillus spreads through the blood and is not as aggressive. It normally affects inner organs like the lungs. In this case it was seen in the eyes right away. While treating mucor, it is generally expected that the same line of

treatment

would take care of aspergillus or yellow fungus also. Ghate’s case can lead to changes in approach, he says.

Dr Vikram Rathi, who treated Ghate for mucor in the lungs, said, “He had come with the eye problem but also reported the lung infection. We decided to do a bronchoscopy. There were soft tissues with blood clots which blocked airways of the lungs which had to be suctioned out. The whole process took 45 minutes.”

At home in Bhadrawati taluka of

Chandrapur

, Ghate said he had got Covid sometime in mid-April and went to the hospital for 8 to 10 days. After a week, he developed blindness. The doctor at Bhadrawati referred him to Nagpur, where he was operated upon. “Now I am able to move around independently and the vision is clear enough in the left eye. Though it blurred in the right,” he said.

Had his treatment been delayed, then probably his eyesight may have gone completely. The only saving grace would have been that they would not need to remove his eyes as it happens in black fungus, said Kamble.