HD Kumaraswamy accuses govt of 'lethargy' in managing epidemic diseases

Bengaluru: Accusing the Karnataka government of being lethargic towards managing epidemic diseases, JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy on Friday urged it to immediately declare "black fungus" as an epidemic. The former Chief Minister in a series of tweets, warned that there is danger of Karnataka witnessing higher number of black fungus infections as according to experts those recovered from COVID are getting infected by the disease, and the state has a big number of coronavirus cases.

"Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Odisha, Gujarat and Chandighad have declared black fungus (Mucormycosis) as an epidemic.

The Centre has also asked the states to declare an epidemic. The state should also declare it as an epidemic immediately," Kumaraswamy tweeted. Stating that it was necessary to declare it as an epidemic to take immediate measures to control this disease and frontline workers working for it, he said there are increased chances of death with black fungus infections and this deadly disease needs to be controlled.

As cases of "black fungus" among COVID-19 patients in the country are witnessing a rise, the Centre on Thursday urged all states and union territories to declare it as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act to ensure mandatory surveillance to tackle the "new challenge".

Following this, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar has said black fungus infection is now a notifiable disease and no hospital or medical establishment having the capacity to provide treatment should deny admission of patients.

He also said an official government order towards this will be notified soon. Alleging that the state government was repeatedly being lethargic towards the management of epidemic diseases, which is not good, Kumaraswamy said, it can also be seen that it is stumbling block in handling black fungus infections with inadequate medicine stock or in procuring them.

"The government should immediately procure medicines for black fungus treatment in adequate numbers and should keep ENT specialists, ophthalmologists, general surgeons, neurologists and dentists on alert," he added.