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Will climate change lead to more fungal infections?

Wellcome Trust · last updated

While some fungal infections are mild, others are life-threatening. Despite this, healthcare professionals often don’t consider fungal infections when treating patients.

Fungal infections can be hard to recognise, because their symptoms overlap with other common conditions. Healthcare professionals may only realise an infection is fungal when antibacterial drugs don’t work to treat it. Diagnosis is difficult, as there are few effective tests and access is limited.

Even when these infections are diagnosed, they can be very hard to treat.

Currently, there are only four classes of antifungal drugs. Similar drugs are used in both agriculture and medicine, giving fungi more opportunities to develop resistance.

Developing safe antifungal drugs is extremely challenging. This is because fungi share more genetics with humans than with plants. Drugs that harm fungi often also harm us.

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