Two highly contagious ringworm strains that defy standard treatments are arriving in the United States, according to a new report by NYU Langone Health, a medical center chain in New York City. “Healthcare providers should be aware that Trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII is the latest severe skin infection to reach the United States,” Dr. Avrom Caplan, an assistant professor in the Department of Dermatology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said in a press release, urging providers to ask about groin and buttocks rashes in at-risk patients directly.
His team is expanding research efforts to track emerging cases. The cases were initially detected in New York in 2021 and 2022 and involved two women. One had recently traveled to Bangladesh, while the other woman had no travel history to explain how she became infected, suggesting the disease was already present in the United States.
“Farmers use fungicides to combat these, but this can lead to resistance in human-infecting fungi due to shared molecular targets between fungicides and antifungal drugs,” Dr. Ng said. Developing new antifungals is challenging due to the genetic similarities between fungi and humans, making it difficult to target fungi without harming human cells, he noted.
Fungi develop drug resistance quickly, and only three major classes of antifungal drugs exist compared to dozens of antibacterial classes. “We urge providers to continue to practice antimicrobial stewardship in order to slow down the.
