TS govt-funded project shows promising results in treating Black Fungus

Hyderabad: The collaboration between practitioners of western and Indian medicine in Telangana to explore treatment modalities for black fungus not only has the potential to significantly reduce its treatment costs but also sets a template for similar initiatives in the near future. Due to a severe shortage and of anti-fungal drug Amphotericin and its prohibitively […]

Hyderabad: The collaboration between practitioners of western and Indian medicine in Telangana to explore treatment modalities for black fungus not only has the potential to significantly reduce its treatment costs but also sets a template for similar initiatives in the near future.

Due to a severe shortage and of anti-fungal drug Amphotericin and its prohibitively expensive costs, Chief Minister, K Chandrashekhar Rao directed the State AYUSH department to explore existing treatment protocols in the literature of Indian medicine.

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Commissioner of AYUSH, Dr Alagu Varshini led the team of researchers, which included a research team each at ENT Government Hospital and Gandhi Hospital. The researchers and PG students of Dr BRKR Government Ayurveda Hospital were deputed to provide technical support to the clinical study.

“This is for the first time that practitioners of western medicine and Indian medicine have come together to search for a sustainable solution for treating black fungus cases in an efficient and economical way. The results of the 45-day clinical study have been very good, as patients have recovered quite well from black fungus. This is an entirely State government-funded project and we are days away from sharing our findings for peer-review by science journals,” says Dr Perugu Srikanth Babu, Principal, Dr BRKR Government Ayurveda College.

Principal Investigator and Associate Professor, Dr Praveen Kumar Madikonda, Department AYUSH, who led the study in Government ENT Hospital, pointed out that they were able to treat patients whose health condition was rapidly deteriorating.

“The difficult aspect of treating black fungus patients is the recurrence of the disease, which happens frequently and we received a lot of such patients. Our study clearly indicated a drop in recurrence and also stopped the disease from spreading to other organs,” he said.

The Gandhi Hospital arm of the clinical study was led by Dr A V Sankar Prasad, who is a trained MBBS doctor and a qualified Ayurveda specialist. “This is our attempt at integrative medicine to find a solution for a challenging disease like black fungus. I believe that the Indian health care system is not complete unless we include or mix both Indian traditional medicine with western treatment protocols. This clinical study should be an example or blueprint for similar initiatives across the country,” he said.

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