A recurring issue —that related to the pathological potential of microorganisms typical of other species in humans— is used in the production of audiovisual series, as is the case of The Last of Usfrom HBO, which fictionalizes around this type of contingency in a post-apocalyptic world, where a fungus, and not a virus, is the pandemic adversary.
Its about Chondrosterium purplewhich until very recently was only known to cause silver leaf disease, but now turns out to have affected a real human in India two years ago, according to the scientific publication ScienceDirectdated March 2023.
“This is the first case where this plant fungus caused disease in a human.” This fact “highlights the potential of environmental plant fungi to cause disease in humans and the importance of molecular techniques to identify the causative fungal species,” the researchers say.
The affected patient, a 61-year-old man, a plant mycologist by profession, went to a hospital in his country with symptoms such as hoarseness, cough, tiredness and difficulty swallowing.
After performing an x-ray —says hypertextual.com— with negative results, a computed tomography revealed the presence of an abscess on his neck, which was removed.
When several attempts to reach a diagnosis were unsuccessful, a sample of that tissue was sent to the World Health Organization (WHO), where the cause of the infection emerged: the Chondrosterium purple. Thus, the first evidence of the jump of said fungus from plants to a human was found.
Fortunately, the patient was cured and has remained healthy, with no signs of relapse, for the entire period since. After the access detected in his neck was completely drained, the patient was treated for 60 days with an antifungal drug called voriconazole.
In the aforementioned scientific publication, the authors of the article allude to global warming as a cause of this leap from a microorganism typical of plants to the human species. They add that the climatic phenomenon could accelerate situations of the same type, although they specify that a fungus must be able to survive temperatures of 35 °C to 37 °C in order to infect people.
However, keeping an eye on such exceptions means protecting the most vulnerable. In addition, certain changes may bring with them a greater number of people affected. Because, “the worsening of global warming and other activities of civilization opens a Pandora’s box for new fungal diseases,” the experts stated. (Taken from Cubaenresumen. Cover image: hipertextual.com).