An outbreak of rare fungal diseases is spreading around the world. This is facilitated by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, as fungi seem to have adapted to higher temperatures.
Bloomberg writes about it.
Doctors are only now beginning to realize the speed with which fungal infections spread. And the rapid warming helped diseases to learn to overcome the natural defense of a person — body temperature.
Bloomberg notes that mild fungal diseases have become commonplace, such as dandruff. But diseases caused by the fungus Candida auris, which often affects people with a weak immune system, are much less common — but this fungus kills up to half of those infected.
The fungus Candida auris is now present on all continents except Antarctica. Fungi that cause serious diseases have also begun to affect young, healthy people — this indicates the growing power of pathogens.
Fungus Candida auris.
Although the number of reported cases of diseases caused by deadly fungi is still small compared to other diseases, the rate at which they have spread in the past few years is alarming — as is the fact that mutations are making them more resistant to treatment. Millions of cases also go unreported because pathogens play a mediated role in the death of people from cancer to HIV infection.
Candida auris fungus was first found in the ear canal of a patient in Japan in 2009. But already in 2022 — this is the last year for which comprehensive data is available, this fungus was found in 2 377 people in the United States. This is more than seven times more than in 2018, when it was decided that diseases caused by this fungus should be reported to the health authorities.
"People know about toenail fungus, but they donʼt think about the fact that fungi are increasingly causing life-threatening diseases. The world is just beginning to realize the need for more accurate and rapid diagnosis of fungal infections in humans," says Professor Sarah Gurr, who specializes in fungal infections at the University of Exeter.
In 2022, the World Health Organization compiled a list of fungal infections most threatening to human health. So they wanted to determine priorities for the development of treatment methods, but the efforts of scientists lag behind the pace of the spread of infections and their mutations.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals were filled with patients — this also contributed to the spread of fungi. In 2021, mucormycosis, or black fungus, spread in Indian hospitals due to mold-infested oxygen pipes and humidifiers used to treat coronavirus patients.
The increasing heat resistance shown by some fungal infections is a serious concern. A fungus that can survive at human body temperature is a dystopian scenario similar to that shown in zombie series such as The Last of Us . But thatʼs not as far from the truth as some people think, experts say.
“We can take a fungus that normally grows at 18 °C and slowly adapt it to the new conditions over successive generations, raising it one degree at a time, up to 35 °C. This is how fungi can find new "hosts" — jump from the soil to the skin," Gurr said.
In June 2024, Chinese researchers, reviewing medical records from 2009 to 2019, discovered two patients with the fungus Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis. Although it was previously thought that it could not infect humans, it has withstood normal human body temperature in laboratory tests. When exposed to the heat, it also developed mutations that made existing antifungal drugs ineffective against infected mice.
The global quarantine caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted human interactions and changed the impact of various pathogens on humans. Now, peopleʼs immune systems may be less protected against the invasion of infectious diseases than before. It also explains why various diseases are now coming back with redoubled force.
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