Written by
On 09.02.2023 at 05:00
Modified on 09.02.2023 at 5:00 p.m.
No vaccine currently exists against the fungal infections that kill 1.5 million people worldwide every year and threaten to resist drugs. American scientists are said to be on the verge of developing one.
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If you watched the apocalyptic series “The Last of Us”, you know that a fungal epidemic, due to a killer fungus is one of the disaster scenarios envisaged by science fiction. For the moment scientists are not so worried about seeing a fungus create a real global pandemic and turn everyone into a zombie. But the threat of worsening fungal diseases due to warming temperatures is nonetheless taken seriously, especially by WHO. American scientists have begun to develop a novel vaccine to limit the serious symptoms of these fungal infections.
Three fungi responsible for most severe cases
So far, researchers at the University of Georgia have tested their injection on monkeys and mice, they explain in their study. This has been shown to be 100% effective in combating three families of yeasts: Candidal’Aspergillus and the Pneumocytis. In the United States, these three cause 3,500 deaths and 50,000 hospitalizations a year. The first often affects the skin, the mucous membranes (vaginal or oral), but can generalize throughout the body, and the other two attack the lungs and can cause respiratory failure.
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Worldwide, 1.5 million people succumbed to a fungal infection in 2021. The people most at risk are those who are immunocompromised, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis or HIV patients for example, because these fungi can become invasive and lead to death. Antifungals exist, but fungi know how to adapt to resist. The idea of this vaccine called “NXT2” is to help in the production of specific antibodies to fight against these infections, which develop when we breathe in or come into contact with spores. A clinical test phase on humans is currently under study.
“The population of patients at risk for invasive fungal infections has increased dramatically in recent years”explains Dr. Karen Norris, professor of veterinary medicine at UGA and chief scientist behind the vaccine, via the Daily Mail. The hot and humid climate facilitates their propagation. In 2021, a black fungus that spread in India killed tens of thousands of people, most of whom were weakened by Covid-19.
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In France, invasive mycoses caused nearly 10,000 deaths out of nearly 36,000 infections between 2001 and 2010, according to Public Health France.
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