PATNA, March 27 -- Middle-aged people between 30 and 60 years of age, having recovered from Covid-19 should be careful of stubborn hip pain, persisting despite taking painkillers for a couple of months. They need to consult an orthopaedic surgeon to check for avascular necrosis (AVN) of hip head, which is death of bone tissue due to lack of blood supply, associated with long-term steroid use or consuming alcohol, one of the common after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic that also includes heart attack, deep vein thrombosis (a defect in defective blood circulation), cerebral thrombosis, lung and kidney disorders, said experts at the two-day seventh Global Orthopaedic Forum Conference, which culminated in Patna on Sunday. "There has been a four-fold increase in AVN cases post-pandemic. From doing roughly one AVN-related hip joint replacement in a year during pre-Covid times to doing four such surgeries in young patients now, I have found that 80% AVN cases now have steroid therapy history and less than 20% do not have steroid therapy history," said Dr. AS Prasad, 65, a leading private orthopaedician from Kanpur, who did one such demonstrative live surgery at Patna's Akshat Seva Sadan on Saturday....