Resistant to medication Novel deadly fungus suddenly infects humans

Rising temperatures on Earth can make fungal infections more dangerous for humans. Now researchers in China seem to have found evidence.

Fungal infections can be fatal for many people, and the admission of patients to intensive care units is a major risk factor. "Despite advances in treatment, a Candida fungal infection detectable in the blood still has a high mortality rate of up to 40 percent," writes Jon Salmanton-Garcia from Cologne University Hospital in a study in the Journal of Infection.

The reason for the high mortality rate is that Candida auris, for example, does not respond at all to some antifungal drugs, so-called antimycotics.

This appears to be just the beginning, as scientists have long feared that climate change and rising temperatures could make fungi more dangerous for humans. Researchers in China have now come across evidence to support this assumption.

As the medical journal "Science " reports, researchers investigating fungal infections in Chinese hospitals discovered a fungus that had not previously been found in humans, Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis (R. fluvialis), in two patients.

Resistant to medication

The pathogen was already resistant to the two most commonly used antifungal drugs - and when they exposed it to higher temperatures, it quickly developed resistance to a third. This made it virtually untreatable with current drugs.

The result "supports the idea that global warming could contribute to the evolution of this fungal pathogen or other new fungal pathogens," says Linqi Wang, a microbiologist at the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Nothing good for the future

Both patients died in intensive care units in different hospitals. Although it is unclear whether their deaths are specifically linked to the fungal disease, David Denning, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Manchester, explains in "Science": "This is a remarkable and unexpected finding that does not bode well for the future."

Researcher Matthew Fischer from Imperial College London takes a more relaxed view of the results of the Chinese study. In his opinion, it "reflects good clinical microbiology in a little-studied part of the world rather than a fungal disease that appears in Last of Us," says Fischer, referring to the drama series in which a fungal pandemic almost wipes out the entire human race.