Warmer climate believed to be reason of rising fungi in US

• As fungi are exposed to more consistent elevated temperatures, there’s a real possibility that certain fungi that were previously harmless suddenly become potential pathogens.

Cases of rare fungal infections are rising in the United States, and scientists believe it is related to elevated temperatures, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.  

"As fungi are exposed to more consistent elevated temperatures, there’s a real possibility that certain fungi that were previously harmless suddenly become potential pathogens," Peter Pappas, an infections-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said, as quoted by the newspaper.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States published a study in January that revealed how higher temperatures may cause some disease-causing fungi to evolve faster, enabling their survival.

Some scientists have used DNA sequencing to find out that certain fungi DNA sequences have the ability to move from one location on the genome to another. This, according to the report, can result in mutations and change gene expression while allowing fungi to adapt to stressors, including heat.

Scientists have also found that some potentially-deadly fungi normally found in soil have significantly expanded their geographical range in the US since the 1950s.

That, according to the report, could have been encouraged by climate change-induced warming temperatures.

The World Health Organization has identified Cryptococcus, Coccidioides, Histoplasma, and Candida auris as some of the most threatening pathogens to humans.

In 2021, more than 7,000 people died from fungal infections in the United States, and the number has growingly increased since the 1970s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Currently, few effective medications exist for the treatment of these infections.

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