Mucormycosis: The 'black fungus' maiming Covid patients in India

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On Saturday morning, Dr Akshay Nair, a Mumbai-based eye surgeon, was waiting to operate on a 25-year-old woman who had recovered from a bout of Covid-19 three weeks ago.

Inside the surgery, an ear, nose and throat specialist was already at work on the patient, a diabetic.

He had inserted a tube in her nose and was removing tissues infected with mucormycosis, a rare but dangerous fungal infection. This aggressive infection affects the nose, eye and sometimes the brain.

After his colleague finished, Dr Nair would carry out a three hour procedure to remove the patient's eye.

"I will be removing her eye to save her life. That's how this disease works," Dr Nair told me.

Even as a deadly second wave of Covid-19 ravages India, doctors are now reporting a rash of cases involving a rare infection - also called the "black fungus" - among recovering and recovered Covid-19 patients.

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