The fungal threat to human health is growing in a warmer, wetter, sicker world

[Scott]

In the HBO show “The Last of Us,” characters identify zombies among them by the fungi that bursts from their bodies, and fungal parasites manipulate the humans to infect the communities around them.

In real life, the fungal species that inspired the story, Ophiocordyceps, infects insects and does not cause problems for people. HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.

However, the threat from fungal pathogens is increasing, experts say, and may grow much worse in a warmer, wetter and sicker world.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/health/fungus-health-threat-scn/index.html

[300sd]

What? Monkeypox didn't work! 

[Emdog]

I assume aimed at US/Western Europe audiences. We're way ahead of that here in Thailand in the wet and warm categories

[internationalism]

54 minutes ago, Emdog said:

I assume aimed at US/Western Europe audiences. We're way ahead of that here in Thailand in the wet and warm categories

while indigenous SE asia people might be genetically resistant to some harmful fungus, those who moved here from cold or dry climates might catch fungal infections easier.

Fungus is blamed for some cancers. Antifungal medicines griseofulvine, itraconazole, fluconazole are used experimentally for treating cancer. 

[Scott]

One of the fungal infections that is beginning to be problematic in the US is Valley Fever.  Historically, it is a fungal infection that has been limited to the desert Southwest.  It has now spread as far north as Washington state.  That is quite a leap.

 

Valley fever, also called coccidioidomycosis, is an infection caused by the fungus Coccidioides. The fungus is known to live in the soil in the southwestern United States and parts of Mexico and Central and South America. The fungus was also recently found in south-central Washington.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/coccidioidomycosis/index.html

[bendejo]

The health problems on the rise are not necessarily fungal.  As the climate changes and some semi-tropical places are becoming more tropical it facilitates tropical diseases that were previously rare in these locations.  This, combined with other problems like people living on the streets (with no sanitary facilities), can cause things like this:

Widespread person-to-person outbreaks of hepatitis A across the United States