Doctors Find White Fungus Abscess In Recovered COVID-19 Patient’s Brain

Hyderabad: A patient who recovered from COVID-19 here reportedly developed a rare case of white fungus or Aspergillus forming an abscess in the brain.

The patient who recovered from the viral disease in May complained of weakness in limbs and difficulty in speech. When doctors conducted a scan of the brain, they found clot-like formations that did not reduce despite medication. It was only after surgery was conducted that the doctors detected that the white fungus had formed an abscess in the brain, Hindustan Times reported.

While inflammation of the brain by Aspergillus is common, instances of white fungus forming an abscess, especially in Covid-19 patients, are extremely rare, doctors said.

A senior neurosurgeon of Hyderabad-based Sunshine Hospitals, Dr P Ranganadham, said while fungal infections have been found in Covid-19 patients who are diabetic, in this case, although the patient has a history of high blood pressure there was no presence of diabetes, according to a report published in TOI.

“The paranasal sinuses are clear indicating that white fungus had not entered the brain through the nose unlike black fungus,” the specialist doctor was quoted as saying.

According to Dr Ranganadham, who performed the surgery, the patient complained of weakness in the limb and difficulty in speech on the sixth day following hospitalisation with symptoms of COVID-19 virus when the second wave of the pandemic was at its peak. A brain scan revealed a large lesion in the left part and two small lesions in other areas.

The doctor said the patient was initially treated for haematoma. However, when another MRI of the brain was conducted it was found that the lesion had increased in size with dense and well-defined margins.

Dr Ranganadham told TOI the Aspergillosis of the central nervous system was caused after the white blood cells of the brain were invaded by the white fungus.