Fungal infections are far more deadly than you may think

"Every year around 1.5 million sufferers die as a result of an invasive fungal infection - about the same number as from malaria or tuberculosis."

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research has published this worrying fact on the website gesundheitsforschung-bmbf.de.

Nearly everyone has experienced the annoyance of a fungal issue on their feet, nails or skin.

It can be very uncomfortable, but treatable and harmless...or so many think. But sometimes that's not true, and fungal diseases can have fatal consequences.

Bernhard Hube is a professor of microbiology. He is researching microscopic fungi that can infect humans at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology in Jena, Germany.

On the German television program Tagesschau, Hube said: "The fact is that fungus infections kill as many people a year as tuberculosis and even more than malaria. This fact is simply neglected."

In an interview with Tagesschau, Professor Hube explained that the lack of clear symptoms can lead to the wrong treatments: "The patients have a fever, then the doctor uses antibiotics and that could even increase the problem."

Pictured: a fungal infection breath testing device at a hospital in Boston, USA

People with a weakened immune system are mainly at risk, but the website aerzteblatt.de states: "Both the number and the heterogeneity of patients at risk for invasive fungal infections have increased."

The head of the National Reference Center for Invasive Fungal Infections, Oliver Kurzai (pictured), does not want to deny the danger posed by fungi - not even for Europe.

Oliver Kurzai and his team are trying to figure out how the human immune system reacts to fungi. "We know that certain congenital defects lead to an increased susceptibility to fungal infections," says Kurzai.

More detailed knowledge in this area could help to better understand the immune system and save human lives.

A prominent victim of a fungus infection was Denise DuBarry. On March 25, 2019, California newspaper Desert Sun reported that American actress Denise DuBarry (pictured in 2017) died of a "deadly fungal disease." She was 63 years old at the time.

Candida auris was first identified in 2009. It causes severe multidrug-resistant infections in hospitalized patients and has a high mortality rate. It can lead to bloodstream, wound and ear infections and has also been found in respiratory and urine samples.

The Aspergillus fumigatus fungus grows on house dust, soil, and decaying vegetable matter, including stale food, hay, and grain. People and animals constantly breathe in spores of this fungus. In people with a weakened immune function or other lung diseases, it can trigger allergies and the serious lung disease aspergillosis. It can also spread to the brain, kidneys, liver, and skin.

Histoplasma capsulatum is a fungus that can cause lung infection if inhaled. This is usually harmless, but occasionally progressive histoplasmosis resembling tuberculosis develops.

The Mucor fungus, also known as black fungus, can also cause lung disease. Found in soil and decaying organic matter, it is a common indoor mold. In patients whose immune systems are weakened, it can cause the rare but serious disease mucormycosis. The fungus can affect the lungs, sinuses, brain, gastrointestinal tract, or skin.

In 2021, outbreaks of mucormycosis were observed primarily in diabetics with Covid-19. Surgery was often required to excise the infected tissue. The situation in India was particularly serious.

Pictured: a patient in India in May 2021

In May 2022, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, India reported rapidly increasing numbers of the dangerous fungal infection mucormycosis. The so-called black fungus occurred as a complication in COVID-19 patients. According to the CDC, the death rate from this fungal infection is 54 percent.

"There are more and more types of fungi that are resistant to all approved drugs," Adilia Warris, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Exeter in England, told Tagesschau. Also, a growing problem, according to Warris, is "the resistance that develops as a result of exposure of fungi to antifungal agents."

Analysis by a research group from Imperial College London appears to support the agricultural origin of resistant fungi. Fungicides are also used so that the harvest does not rot. In the long run, this could seriously affect the treatment of dangerous fungal infections.