TWO people have died after being infected with a drug-resistant fungus that thrives in the human body, scientists have revealed. Before now, the fungus - called Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis - had never been detected in people. 3 Scientists in China have discovered a previously unknown fungal pathogen that can infect humans.
Credit: Getty - Contributor Typically, the warm body temperatures of humans offer greater protection against fungal infections . But a new study, published in Nature Microbiology , found that this specific bug thrives in warmer climates of around 37C (the standard human body temperature) and - as a result - has become resistant to antifungal drugs. It's now thought that fungal infections make up nearly 6.
8 per cent of global deaths - with 3.8million losing their lives to the infections annually. This is almost double the World Health Organisation's (WHO) 2022 estimate, which said 1.
7million people die each year as a result of fungal disease. To put this in perspective, heart disease - the world's biggest killer - is responsible for 16 per cent of the world’s total deaths, followed by stroke at 11 per cent. The discovery of this particular strain’s scary mutations has raised fears that the effects of climate change could make fungal infections even more dangerous to humans.
As part of their research, a team of scientists from the China Hospital Invasive Fungal Surveillance Net programme took fungi samples from patients who had died across China between .