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The signatories recommend a global agreement to restrict the use of certain classes of antifungal molecules for specific applications.
Scientists from several countries have warned of the threat that fungal diseases pose to humanity and of the importance of promoting research into this problem, since many of the pathogens are already resistant to drugs.
Most of the fungal pathogens identified as priority by the World Health Organization (WHO), and linked to nearly 3.8 million deaths a year worldwide, are already resistant to antibiotics or are acquiring such resistance.
To warn of the seriousness of the threat and the importance of speeding up the study, an international team of researchers from eleven countries has published a letter today in the scientific journal The Lancet in which they call for more attention and more resources to combat resistance to treatments in pathologies caused by fungi.
The article was co-authored by Norman van Rhijn, a researcher at the University of Manchester, and by Professor Ferry Hagen, from the Westerdijk Institute in the Netherlands, and was co-authored by eleven scientists from Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria, Turkey, Australia, Uganda, India, the United States, Brazil, South Africa and China.
Among the signatories is Ana Alastruey, a Spanish researcher at the National Centre for Microbiology (CNM) of the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII), who coordinated a WHO report on fungal pathogens that represent an infectious risk to public health, the centre reported in a note released today.
As the researchers explain in their article, most of the fungal pathogens identified as priority by the World Health Organization (WHO), responsible for around 3.8 million deaths a year worldwide, are already resistant or are rapidly acquiring resistance to antifungal drugs.
Ana Alastruey stressed in the note released today by the ISCIII that “resistance is more the rule than the exception in the four classes of antifungals available to treat fungal infections, which makes the treatment of many invasive fungal infections difficult, or even impossible.”
Fungicide-resistant infections include those such as Aspergillus, Candida or Trichophyton indotineae, any of which can have very significant impacts on the health of elderly or vulnerable patients.
In the text, the signatories recommend a global agreement to restrict the use of certain classes of antifungal molecules for specific applications; greater collaboration on solutions and regulations that ensure food safety and universal health for animals, plants and humans; and the inclusion of antifungal resistance in the UN meeting on antimicrobial resistance taking place this month.
Researchers have found that despite the enormous difficulties in developing drugs against fungal infections , several promising new agents, including entirely new classes of molecules, have entered clinical trials in recent years.
But they have observed that even before they reach the market after years of development, the agrochemical industry has already developed fungicides with similar modes of action, causing cross-resistances that send scientists back to square one.
Many essential crops are affected by fungi, so antifungal protection is necessary for food safety , but researchers writing in The Lancet warn of the high price this entails for public health.