Mucormycosis

Context:

The mucormycosis, the fungal infection being reported in COVID-19 patients, has caused panic among the people as they were struggling to cope with the threat of a new pandemic. Even the central government had asked states to declare it an epidemic.

What is mucormycosis?

• It is a new challenge in the form of a fungal infection, namely mucormycosis.
• It has emerged and is reported from many States amongst COVID-19 patients, especially in those who are on steroid therapy and deranged sugar control.
• This infection is leading to prolonged morbidity and mortality amongst COVID-19 patients.
• The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare requested to make mucormycosis a notifiable disease under Epidemic Diseases Act 1897.
• Use: Declaring the black fungus infection seen in COVID-19 patients an epidemic would lead to health facilities screening for it and reporting all such cases to the government.

Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897

• This was first enacted to tackle the bubonic plague in Mumbai in former British India.
• The law is meant for the containment of epidemics by providing special powers that are required for the implementation of containment measures to control the spread of the disease.
• A disease can be declared an epidemic by State or Central government.

Earlier use of the Act

• In 2018, the Act was enforced as cholera began to spread in a region of Gujarat.
• In 2015, it was used to deal with dengue and malaria in Chandigarh .
• In 2009 it was invoked in Pune to combat swine flu.
• In 2020, in order to limit the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 during the COVID-19 pandemic in India