Cow dung as Covid-19 cure spurs black fungus fear

With videos and pictures of people dunking themselves in water mixed with cow dung surfacing on social media, medical experts are sounding the alarm against treating Covid-19 with cow dung, saying the practice could lead to an explosion in the number of mucormycosis or “black fungus” cases.

Cases of the fungal infection have recently picked up in the country and put some recovered Covid patients back in hospital beds.

Doctors in India and abroad spoke out against the use of cow dung as a remedy after a video of people seen smearing cow waste over their bodies did the rounds on social media last week, prompting Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav to tweet: "'Should we laugh or cry."

According to doctors, close contact with cow dung could increase the chances of recovered Covid patients contracting mucormycosis, a rare but deadly fungal disease caused by a group of moulds called mucormycetes that are present everywhere in the environment, including soil and dung.

The fungal disease is more likely to affect Covid patients with acute diabetes who have been treated with steroids and immunosuppressants, which weaken the body’s immune system and make it more vulnerable to infections like mucormycosis, doctors said.

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People with diabetes or immunocompromised conditions recently treated with steroids would be at a very high risk of contracting black fungus if they believe in the myth and use dung as a cure for Covid, Dr. Shailesh Kothalkar, head and neck cancer surgeon and director at Nagpur’s Seven Star Hospital told The Print.

Animal dung is explicitly mentioned as one of the carriers of the fungal moulds on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website, besides decaying organic matter, such as leaves, compost piles.

Doctors say any Covid-19 patient who is diabetic or immunocompromised and has taken steroids should be warned against using cow dung.

“This will lead to a phenomenal increase in their chances of catching black fungus,” he added. Kothalkar also said that in the last twenty years, he had operated on only 12 patients with mucormycosis but had been conducting three to four surgeries daily during the pandemic’s second wave.

Other health experts also denounce the practice, citing little scientific evidence to claim that cow dung cures Covid in the first place. While they agree there are no studies to prove a direct relationship between cow dung and the rise of black fungus cases so far, they say it is logical to expect that it could lead to a blow up in cases.