While industrialised countries are managing to control deaths from invasive fungal infections (IFIs), their rapid spread poses a major threat to developing countries, where some at-risk groups are highly exposed. These include people with poorly managed diabetes, patients with respiratory, liver or kidney conditions, and those living with HIV. In 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, India faced a devastating outbreak of mucormycosis, a fungal infection that attacks the eyes, sinuses and brain, and can lead to necrosis of facial tissue. Whereas only around 10,000 cases were previously reported worldwide per year, 47,500 cases were diagnosed in India alone within three months, often in young patients and with a 50% mortality rate. A study of a sample group estimated that nearly 80% of those infected had pre-existing diabetes and a similar proportion had been prescribed steroid treatments (which suppress the immune system) for Covid.

In the future, pandemics such as influenza or Covid could dramatically increase the prevalence of IFIs. The MYCOVID study, for instance, found an elevated risk of developing invasive aspergillosis in patients with severe Covid, doubling the associated mortality rate. Combined with fragile healthcare systems (poor hygiene conditions, unequal access to medical facilities, lack of testing and limited availability of antifungal drugs, which are often very expensive), these data raise fears of devastating double pandemics. This risk is especially acute in countries where agricultural fungicide use is less strictly regulated than in the global North, potentially fuelling increased resistance to azole antifungals.

Other factors, such as climate change, may also accelerate the spread of fungi responsible for (…)

Full article: 751 words.

(1) “En Grèce, les médias se mettent en quête de bonnes nouvelles” (Greek media in search of good news), Agence France Presse, Paris, 28 December 2012.

(2) Out of a total of 5.2m in 2010, according to official statistics.

(3) The agreement signed in May 2010, which imposed austerity on Greece in return for its financial “rescue”.