Deadly Fungal Infections Are Evolving And Causing "Silent Pandemic", Scientists Warn

Fungal infections are left out of too many initiatives to tackle antimicrobial resistance, the researchers said.

Fungal infections are evolving and becoming resistant to the medicines used to treat them, causing what some researchers are calling a "silent pandemic" that needs to be addressed urgently. According to molecular biologist Norman van Rhijn from the University of Manchester in the UK, the threat of fungal pathogens and antifungal resistance is being overlooked in global health discussions. Without urgent attention and action, some particularly nasty fungal infections, which already infect 6.5 million a year and claim 3.8 million lives annually, could become even more dangerous, he warned, as per Science Alert. 

The biologist, along with an international group of scientists, is urging government, research communities and the pharmaceutical industry to "look beyond just bacteria". Fungal infections are left out of too many initiatives to tackle antimicrobial resistance, the researchers said, per Science Alert. Without urgent attention, fungal infections could become even more dangerous, they said. 

"The disproportionate focus on bacteria is concerning because many drug resistance problems over the past decades were the result of invasive fungal diseases, which are largely under-recognized by the community and governments alike," Norman van Rhijn and his colleagues, who hail from institutions in China, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Spain, the UK, Brazil, the US, India, Turkiye, and Uganda, said.