What is Green Fungus: Key things to know

A 34-year-old Covid-19 survivor was diagnosed with

Green Fungus

infection in Madhya Pradesh's Indore and was shifted to Mumbai by air ambulance for treatment, a senior doctor said on Tuesday.


The patient was found to have Green Fungus (Aspergillosis) infection in his sinuses, lungs and blood, a first ever case reported in India.

Besides Green, Black, White and Yellow fungus infections have also been reported from different parts of the country recently.

What is Green Fungus?

Green Fungus is Aspergillosis, an infection caused by Aspergillus, a common mold (a type of fungus) that lives indoors and outdoors. Most people breathe in Aspergillus spores every day without getting sick.

However, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria has also said that it is better to identify mucormycosis by its name rather than by the colour.

"Labelling the same fungus with names of different colors can create confusion. Mucormycosis is not a communicable disease, unlike Covid-19. About 90-95 per cent of patients getting infected with mucormycosis are found to have been either diabetic and/or taking steroids. This infection is seen very rarely in those who are neither diabetic nor taking steroids," he had told reporters recently.

According to doctors, more research is needed on whether the nature of green fungus infection in people who have recovered from Covid-19 is different from other patients.

However, experts differ on the colour coding of the Aspergillus fungus. Dr VP Pandey,

HoD

medicine department, MGM said, “There is no colour coding of fungal infection. The only thing is that it is aspergillus fungus and mucormycosis.”


Why is it called Green Fungus?

“It is not that the fungal infection gives colour shades in the body. Its name is because the colour appears during its culture in the lab while testing it,” said Sri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences (SAIMS) respiratory medicine HoD Dr Ravi Dosi.

Dr Anita Mutha, HoD microbiology department MGM, said, “Fungus show colour in their culture. There are black, yellow, green and white fungus, but these are all specimens of mucormycosis, cinderella and aspergillus.”

Mucormycosis gives black colour, while cinderella gives white and aspergillus gives green and yellow colour in different species, said Dr Mutha HoD microbiology department, MGM explaining about the fungal infection.

How deadly is it?

Amid rising mucormycosis cases among Covid patients and those who have recovered from it, epidemiologists have advised people to not get panicked by the colour of the fungus causing it, and underlined the importance of analysing the kind of infection, its causes and associated risk-factors.

There are various types of fungal infections such as candida, aspergillosis, cryptococcus, histoplasmosis and coccidioidomycosis.

Mucormycosis, candida and aspergillosis are the ones observed more in those with low immunity.

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