Medical researchers recently said that cow dung, commonly used in rituals and fuels in India, is possibly behind an epidemic of black fungus that claimed the lives of or maimed thousands of patients treated in the country last year, for COVID-19.
As specified in a Scroll.in report, a dangerous infection called mucormycosis caused by Mucorales fungi has an overall death rate of 54 percent, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
In May 2021, the said infection was declared an epidemic in the country, during a devastating second wave of COVID-19, with India accounting for 71 percent of all Mucorales infection cases globally.
Fungal spores disperse widely through the smoke of burning biomass, so the practise of burning Mucorales-rich cow dung and crop stubble to dispose of it may lead to Mucorales spores being released into the environment, says Jessy Skaria, a researcher https://t.co/gw4BjfwnIA
— Scroll.in (@scroll_in) April 7, 2022
Essentially, India recorded over 51,000 mucormycosis cases as of November last year. Mucorales has a dung-loving group of fungi, also called coprophilous, thrives on the excrement of herbivores, and this country has the largest population of bovine cattle all over the world, counting "30 crore in its inventory."
COVID-19-Related Mucormycosis
The study, published in mBio, hypothesized that cow excrement rich in Mucorales, given its use in numerous Indian rituals and practices, particularly during the pandemic, possibly played a vital role in India's COVID-19-linked mucormycosis epidemic.
According to an author of the study and an independent researcher from Houston, Texas, Jessy Skaria, the extraordinarily high occurrence of COVID-19-related mucormycosis in the country was attributed by most doctors and researchers to a combination of SARS-CoV-2 viral infection with diabetes, as well as treatment with steroids.
Nonetheless, since the same factors were present in other countries, Skaria explained they looked at unusual local causes in India that could strengthen exposure to Mucorales spores, like "through fumes from burning cow dung."
The study author also said, increased fungal spore burden in the Endian environment has been demonstrated in multi-center research, which exhibited the burden of Mucorales in places near hospitals to be as high as 51.8 percent.
Use of Cow Dung
Common rituals in portions of India include putting cow dung on bodies, burning and inhaling cow-dung fumes, drinking cow urine as a form of ritual purification during prayers, cremations, or festivals, SciDev.Net reported.
Cows, regarded as sacred animal species, are not slaughtered in many states of India. According to Skaria, notable exceptions are West Bengal and Kerala, where mucormycosis was far lower than in Gujarat and Maharashtra, where the slaughter of cattle is strictly prohibited and where the use of cow dung for fuels and rituals is well-known.
During the COVID-19 crisis, religious and political rhetoric inspired many Indians to use cow dung and urine to avoid infection freely or treat COVID-19, including through mass fumigations and smoldering cow dung cakes the researchers observed.
US-based infectious disease and clinical research specialist Judy Stone said exposure to Mucorales spores in cow dung is quite a possible hypothesis. She added she thinks it is pretty clear that there is more to this particular epidemic than steroids and diabetes.
For one, other nations like China have a much higher prevalence of diabetes, yet they have not had the overwhelming number of people who have mucormycosis.
A recent report about the dung cow in India is shown on Health News's YouTube video below:
RELATED ARTICLE : Cow Dung, Urine As COVID-19 Protection Has No Scientific Basis, Ingestion May Lead to Health Risks
Check out more news and information on COVID-19 in Science Times.
