Jumoke Olasunkanmi
The Centre or Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sounded he alarm that climate change may cause an increase in fungal infections in addition to many other threats it poses to the biological, ecological, environmental and societal systems.
In a report released on its official Twitter handle on Friday, CDC explained that rising temperatures and increased rain and snowfall can create a favourable environment for fungi growth, thereby increasing the rate of fungal diseases and infections.
The report added that some disease-causing fungi may spread to new areas where they previously could not survive as a result of extreme weather and this could lead to the emergence of new fungal diseases.
“Increases in temperature and precipitation (e.g., rain and snow) may expand the areas where some fungi can survive in the environment. Changes to the environment may also extend the regions where fungi that cause blastomycosis and histoplasmosis are able to survive. The same is true for fungi usually found in tropical or subtropical climates, such as Cryptococcus gattii,” the report read.
While the CDC noted that only a small percentage of fungi are known to infect people as they cannot survive the humid temperature of the human body, however, continuous change in due to climate change may cause fungi to evolve to live in warmer climes including the human body.
CDC’s report also noted that antifungal resistance may also be on the rise due to the use of fungicides in the environment noting that the agricultural sector is already experiencing antifungal resistance Triazole fungicide used in plant agriculture has been linked to triazole-resistant Aspergillus infection.
