2024-07-22 12:09:01
Not only viruses, but also fungal infections can become a danger when climatic conditions change. Researchers in China have gained new insights.
A changing climate also leads to a change in threats. This could sum up what concerns many scientists around the world. Now researchers have made a new, threatening discovery: fungal infections can also become dangerous as temperatures rise.
As the scientific medical magazine “Science” reports, fungal infections in humans that have never been seen before have been observed in China. The fungus in question is Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis.
The magazine states: “In a study of fungal infections in Chinese hospitals, researchers discovered a fungus that had never been seen in humans before and caused illness in two patients.”
What was worrying was that the pathogen was already resistant to the two most common drugs used to treat fungal infections. The treatment was therefore ineffective.
The study was broad-based. Between 2009 and 2019, researchers in the country analyzed over 27,000 samples. Two of them showed the pathogen, which apparently evades common medications.
But the researchers’ discovery was more far-reaching: “When the fungus was exposed to higher temperatures, it quickly developed resistance to a third drug, making it virtually untreatable with currently available drugs,” says Science.
And further: “The result supports the idea that global warming could contribute to the evolution of this or other new fungal pathogens.”
The fact that temperatures are rising worldwide is viewed with concern in the medical community. David Denning, an infection researcher at the University of Manchester, told “Science”: “This is a remarkable and truly unexpected result that does not bode well for the future.”
To clarify: Fungi generally cause fewer (serious) illnesses in humans than pathogens such as bacteria or viruses. But they can also have serious consequences, especially for the elderly and those with weakened immune systems.