Global warming and fungal infections – the danger is increasing

Fungal organisms successfully adapt to climate change in the context of global warming. They are becoming more dangerous to humans as some of them can adapt to more heat stress, including living conditions inside the human body.

American scientists warn that this is fraught with the emergence of new dangerous diseases, writes The Wall Street Journal. Experts explain that the average human body temperature (36.6 degrees) was previously too high for most fungi. But due to warming, some of them have been able to adapt, studies show. And climate change can create conditions for expanding the distribution area of ​​some types of pathogenic fungi. Peter Pappas, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says:

“Because fungi are exposed to elevated temperatures more consistently, there is a real possibility that some fungi that were previously harmless will suddenly become potential pathogens.”

Public health experts say that deaths from fungal infections are on the rise, which is helped, among other things, by a weakened immune system – such people are more vulnerable to severe fungal diseases.

At least 7,000 people died from fungal infections in the US in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and in the 1970s, deaths were limited to hundreds. However, there are too few effective and non-toxic drugs for the treatment of such infections. Warming may push many fungi to better adapt to the human body and their distribution.

An investigation published in Proceedings of the National in January showed conclusively that warmer temperatures may encourage some disease-causing fungi to develop faster in order to survive.

Scientists at Duke University have grown 800 generations of cryptococci, a group of fungi that can cause serious illness in humans as early as 30 degrees. The study showed that they easily adapt to warm conditions. Cryptococcal infections are especially deadly for immunocompromised people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 110,000 people die each year worldwide from brain infections caused by the fungus Cryptococcus.

Candida auris, no less dangerous fungus, has also successfully adapted to higher temperatures. Some potentially deadly fungi found in soil, including Coccidioides and Histoplasma, have greatly expanded their range in the US since the 1950s. Rising temperatures and other environmental changes associated with climate change may have played a role in this spread.

The WHO has identified fungal pathogens Cryptococcus, Coccidioides, Histoplasma and Candida auris as the greatest threat to humans.

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