‘COVID Took Away So Many’: Modi Emotional During Meet With Doctors

PM Modi also warned against a “new challenge of Black Fungus”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts the doctors and frontline workers on COVID-19 situation in Kashi, through video conferencing, in Delhi.

(Photo: PTI)

Interacting with doctors, paramedical staff and other frontline health workers of Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi over the challenges posed by the pandemic, PM Narendra Modi on Friday, 21 May, became emotional, as he said:

“This virus took away so many people who were close to us. I offer my deepest condolences to their families.”

PM Narendra Modi

Rendered emotional, PM Modi stated that the COVID-19 second wave has put the health system under pressure, and it has to be fought on many fronts. He also thanked doctors and frontline workers for their efforts.

Further, he warned against a “new challenge of Black Fungus”.

“In our ongoing fight against COVID19, a new challenge of Black Fungus has surfaced. We must focus on taking precaution and preparation to deal with it,” PM Modi said on Friday.

“With your tenacity, and with the common efforts of all of us, you have handled this attack of the epidemic to a great extent,” he said, adding that the fight against COVID-19 is going to be long.

PM Modi also paid his tributes to those who have fallen prey to the virus.

“This virus has snatched away many of our loved ones from us. I pay my respects to all those people, expressing my condolences to their families,” he said.

Notify Black Fungus as Epidemic: Centre to States

The Union Health Ministry, on Thursday, urged the states to make mucormycosis, commonly known as Black Fungus, a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act 1897.

“All government and private health facilities, medical colleges to follow guidelines for screening, diagnosis, management of mucormycosis, issued by MoHFW and ICMR,” the ministry said.

Under the act, all states will have to report all confirmed or suspected cases of this condition, seen in recovering COVID patients, to the Health Ministry. The infection has been recorded in several parts of the country.

As reports of Black Fungus (Mucormycosis) infections emerge and social media is inundated with desperate pleas for Amphotericin B, the government has informed that five more companies in India have been allowed to manufacture the drug.