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Former President Pranab Mukharjee passed away on Monday at the age of 84. He had contracted COVID-19 a few days before undergoing a “life-saving surgery” at the Army Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi. He went through a successful brain surgery however remained in a critical condition.
While he was admitted to the hospital, Mukharjee went in a comatose state and was on ventilator support from the past few days. Later, the Bharat Ratna awardee developed a severe lung infection due to which he experienced septic shock and succumbed to the condition. While we mourn his death and pray for his soul’s peace, here we tell you all about the immediate condition that took his life.
It is a fatal condition that occurs when your body develops sepsis as a result of a massive immune response to an infection in your blood leading to extremely low blood pressure. It happens when your body is already infected with severe disease or infection and it has an overwhelming response to it. This often leads to multiple organ failure and death of the patient. It is characterized by symptoms including extremely high fever, fast heart rate, rapid breathing, acute confusion, etc.
Any life-threatening bacterial, fungal, or viral infection like COVID-19 can cause septic shock. It usually begins from lung infection (which was the case with Pranab Mukharjee), abdominal infection, urinary tract, or reproductive system infection.
Usually, a person who has been through major surgery, or is very sick, suffering from diabetes and taking injection drugs to control it, have poor nutrition, or have been exposed to intravenous catheters, urinary catheters, or breathing tubes develops septic shock.
Septic shock can cause various complications that can be life-threatening. A person suffering from this condition may experience heart failure, respiratory failure, stroke, liver failure, or/and abnormal blood clotting.
A blood test is conducted to determine how far the infection has reached and the severity of septic shock. Based on its result, certain other tests like urine test, spinal fluid test, X-rays, ultrasound, CT scan, etc. can also be performed to know the source of infection.
The survival of a patient suffering from septic shock depends on how early the condition has been diagnosed. Once it is confirmed, doctors shift the patient to an ICU and treat the condition by giving intravenous antibiotics, vasopressor medications, corticosteroids, and insulin. Septic shock leads to the death of the patient in 50 per cent of the cases.
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