E-Paper
Black fungus declared an epidemic in J&K
The UT had reported its first death due to the fungal disease, which is increasingly affecting recovering coronavirus patients, on May 21
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday declared mucormycosis, commonly called black fungus an ‘epidemic’ and notified the J&K Epidemic Diseases (Mucormycosis) Regulations that make it mandatory for all government and private health institutions to report suspected and confirmed cases to the health department.
The UT had reported its first death due to the fungal disease, which is increasingly affecting recovering coronavirus patients, on May 21. The victim had been a 40-year-old man of Poonch. The move comes days after the Centre directed all the states and UTs to make black fungus a notifiable disease.
According to the notification, all the government and private health facilities and medical colleges are required to follow the guidelines for screening, diagnosis and management of the disease issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and J&K government as amended from time to time.
The guidelines make it mandatory for all such facilities to report suspected and confirmed cases to the health department through district-level officers and Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP).
The notification also mandates that no person, institution or organisation will spread any information or material for management of mucormycosis without prior permission of the directorate of health services in Jammu and Kashmir.
The DHS will constitute a committee headed by Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the concerned district, which will have specialist of internal Medicine, Ophthalmology, ENT and Epidemiologist as members to review any violations. The violators will be punished under Section 188 of Indian Penal Code.
