Rare diseases have increased unusually after the Covid pandemic

Ho Chi Minh City Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital received 41 patients with osteomyelitis, of which 9 cases were caused by black fungus, 6 people died, which many doctors considered "very unusual".

The information was shared by Doctor Nguyen Minh Hao Hon, Head of the Nose and Sinus Department, Ho Chi Minh City Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital at the hospital's annual scientific and technical conference recently.

According to Dr. Hon, osteomyelitis is an inflammatory condition of the bone marrow, which tends to progress to the bone cortex and periosteal tissue. In the field of otolaryngology, the disease has 3 forms including osteomyelitis of the maxillary bone, osteomyelitis of the skull base, and invasive fungal sinusitis. With the core of maxillary osteomyelitis, before the Covid pandemic, only a few single case reports were recorded, the world recognized this as a very rare condition.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, the frequency of bone marrow inflammation increased in many parts of the world, especially in immunocompromised patients and untreated diabetics. Many cases of post-Covid myelitis have also been recorded in our country, including many deaths, making doctors very concerned because this is a new pathological problem, "very unusual, never seen before." meet". The cause of this situation has not yet been accurately explained.

Of the 41 cases the hospital has received in the last 3 years, the youngest person is 41 and the oldest is 82, most of the patients are over 50 years old. 34 people have diabetes and more than half have had Covid, one and a half times more women than men.

Common clinical symptoms are headache, facial pain, facial swelling, runny nose, decreased vision, and drooping eyelids. CT Scan clearly records images of bone destruction in many locations such as the upper jaw, cheekbones, eye sockets, temples, sphenoid bone... Surgeons remove inflammatory tissue, necrotic bone, find and remove the agent cause disease.

The most cultured bacteria were Staphylococci (9 cases), followed by 5 cases of Klebsiela, 4 cases of Streptococci... 17 cases of bacteria could not be cultured. Fungal results recorded 14 cases of Aspergillus fungus and 9 cases of Mucor fungus (black fungus).

Before the pandemic, Ho Chi Minh City Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital had not recorded Mucor fungus. This fungal infection often has a high mortality rate, severe sequelae, and expensive treatment. World reports show that black fungus disease is increasing mainly in countries heavily affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, once considered a nightmare threatening Indian health.

After the process of coordination between treatment hospitals, 22 people recovered, no symptoms of pain, edema, drooping eyelids, of which 15 people improved their vision. 11 cases are in the monitoring phase, their eyes are still swollen, drooping eyelids, blindness... but fever is gone, pain is reduced, and antibiotics continue to be used. 2 cases relapsed after 6 months of antifungal treatment, the patient's eyes became swollen and painful again. 6 patients died.

From September 2021 to July 2022, another hospital in Ho Chi Minh City also reported 29 cases of post-Covid-19 bone marrow inflammation, of which 7 patients died, many cases were recorded as having diabetes, an increase in blood pressure, chronic kidney disease. More than half of the patients are infected with Aspergillus fungus, the rest are infected with Mucor black fungus.

According to Dr. Hon, the pathogen penetrates directly from trauma or infection in the nose and sinus area, from an adjacent infection or through the bloodstream to the bone and causes bone inflammation. Some risk factors for osteomyelitis are immunodeficiency, malnutrition, diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, hypercoagulability, thromboembolism, highly virulent bacterial infection, and long-term intravenous access. day...

Doctors recommend that when you have unusual symptoms such as headache, facial swelling, pain, runny nose, decreased vision, drooping eyelids, you should go to the hospital for early check-up. If patients with spinal cord inflammation are diagnosed and treated promptly and properly, the possibility of saving lives and restoring vision is great.

* SOURCE: https://vnexpress.net/can-benh-hiem-gap-tang-bat-thuong-sau-dai-dich-covid-4693792.html