WHO Lists Top Fungi Health Threats

In its most ambitious effort to draw attention to a constellation of pathogens that are largely overlooked, the World Health Organization has released a ranking of fungi that threaten human health.

The 19 diseases listed by the health agency kill 1.3 million people and contribute to the deaths of 5 million others each year. People with cancer, H.I.V., and other health conditions are more likely to die from infections.

Many hospitals and clinics in poorer countries don't have the tools to detect and treat the infections that cause the death toll.

Dr. Carmem L Pessoa- Silva, a W.H.O. official focused on disease prevention and control, said at a news We don't have a good idea of how big the problem is.

The report was framed as a call to action by the W.H.O., and officials hope it will lead to a greater sense of urgentness among governments, drug developers, doctors and health policy experts.

The W.H.O. said that climate change has increased the prevalence of some infections. There has been a spike in the number of Covid patients who end up in the intensive care unit because of the coronaviruses.

Thousands of Covid patients in India have had to have facial surgeries because of Mucormycosis, a rare but aggressive pathogen.

In recent years, antifungal medications have lost their curative punch, like the perniciousbacteria that evolve and become resistant to antibiotics through their use in people and agriculture. The use of fungicides on cash crops like grapes, corn and cotton has led to the rise of resistance to a common mold that can be fatal to people with weakened immunity.

Bloodstream infections with fungi in the candida family have a mortality rate of 30%. Patients with Candida auris have a higher figure. There is a yeast that has spread to four dozen countries and is resistant to many drugs.

A W.H.O. official who helped to write the report said that there are only four classes of drugs that treat the disease. Some patients can't take the toxic drugs.

Doctors and researchers were encouraged by the W.H.O.'s decision. The report was not contributed to by a doctor at the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System.

David Denning is the chief executive of the advocacy group Global Action for Fungal Infections.

5,000 lives are saved annually by people with H.I.V. because of the lack of detection of the disease, according to research in Africa.

He said it would cost $50,000 a year for widespread testing.

There are other unseen consequences of the lack of diagnosis. He offered a scenario in which a leukemia patient develops a fatal disease. Relatives of a person who dies from a disease might want to give money to a leukemia charity. They aren't giving it to the charity because they know about leukemia.