Glucocorticoid use in patients with COVID-19 in South Asia

Nandini Chatterjee, MD, is a professor of medicine and editor in chief of the McMaster Textbook of Internal Medicine South Asia Edition.

As far as you are in a position to judge, in what ways was the response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) different in South Asian countries compared with the rest of the world?

In South Asian countries, there has been an overwhelming use of steroid therapy since the second wave of COVID-19, and sometimes it has been inappropriate and exceeding the recommended duration and dosage. The bad effect of this is the emergence of post–COVID-19 mucormycosis, which seems to have thrived or raised its ugly head because of the ensuing immunosuppression that steroids lead to.