Doctor at AIIMS-Patna dies of Covid-19, 15 new cases of black fungus in Bihar

A 32-year-old junior resident doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Dr Pradeep Kumar, who did Covid-19 duty at the institute, succumbed to coronavirus late on Tuesday.

He is the first doctor at AIIMS-Patna among 102 medical practitioners in Bihar to have succumbed to the virus during the second wave of the pandemic. Already over 140 doctors have died due to the virus so far in the state, said Dr Ajay Kumar, senior vice-president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Bihar.

A resident of Sheohar district, who did his MBBS from Patna’s Nalanda Medical College Hospital, Dr Kumar was admitted to AIIMS on April 27 and shifted to the intensive care unit the next day before being put on the ventilator.

“Dr Kumar’s father passed away last year and he was the sole bread earner of his family. We request the state government as well as the AIIMS authorities to provide compensation and a job to one of his two brothers since he sacrificed his life in the war against Covid-19,” said Dr Vinay Kumar, president of the Resident Doctors’ Association, AIIMS-Patna.

One death and 15 new cases of mucormycosis or black fungus, associated with coronavirus, were reported in Bihar on Wednesday, taking its total cases to 244 and deaths 14. The death was reported at Patna’s Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences.

The state health department on Tuesday evening uploaded patient information on the government of India (GoI) portal, a month after the state reported the first case of mucormycosis.

The health department activated its integrated disease surveillance programme (IDSP) and tasked it to upload information on the GoI portal after the Centre made it clear that it would allocate Liposomal Amphotericine-B, a specific drug for mucormycosis, to the state on the basis of the number of patients, as per information uploaded on the GoI portal.

The state made mucormycosis a notifiable disease on May 22 but had failed to compile a “line list” of mucormycosis until recently. As such, it did not have exact details on patients dying due to the fungal infection.

Repeated efforts to reach Manoj Kumar, executive director, State Health Society, Bihar, proved futile.