Fungal skin diseases came out the 4th most prevalent disease worldwide at the Global Burden of Disease 2010 launch conference in London on December 14th 2012. Hosted at the Royal Society and chaired by Richard Horton (Editor the Lancet), Christopher Murray (Institute for Health metrics and Evaluation, Seattle) and Richard Peto (University of Oxford). Over 400 delegates and 13,000 online viewers participated in the extraordinary and unparalleled data release of the work over 5 years from 486 authors from 302 institutions and 50 countries. Most fungal diseases were not assessed, but skin fungal diseases were, and are the most prevalent infectious disease globally. Fungal skin disease include tinea capitis (estimated to be 200 million), ringworm, tinea pedis, onychomycosis (fungal nail infection) and tinea versicolor. Estimated at 985 million, only dental caries, tension-type headache and migraine were more common.
Life-threatening and disabling fungal diseases were not estimated, but some of the more common underlying diseases were, including HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and asthma, as shown in the table below. The prevalence of asthma was estimated at 334 million in adults and children.
| Deaths | Years life lost | Years lost due to disability | Disability adjusted life years | |
| HIV/AIDS* | 1,465,369 | 77,204,868 | 4,342,499 | 81,547,368 |
| Tuberculosis* | 1,195,990 | 42,622,051 | 6,774,195 | 49,396,246 |
| Asthma | 345,736 | 8,624,215 | 13,834,882 | 22,459,097 |
| Fungal skin diseases | <1,000 | <200,000 | 2,302,796 | 2,302,796 |
* including fungal complications
The program is visible here
The Lancet issue with the primary papers are here
The visualisations of the data are here.
The actual meeting discussions were focussed on how this remarkable data would get turned in policy and change for the better. Some major improvements in health have been noted over the last 20 years, notably a steep fall in deaths in children under 5 years, and deaths are increasing in the over 70’s, consistent with major improvements in multiple areas of healthcare and the factors that contribute to disease. The burdens of HIV infection and malaria are falling. But TB and HIV/AIDS still contributed to over a million deaths each and cancer to 8 million deaths, a 33% increase over 20 years ago. One in 4 deaths is related to heart disease of stroke. Deaths from road traffic injuries increased by nearly 50% from 1990 to 2010. High blood pressure is the largest risk factor for disease, followed by tobacco, alcohol and poor diet. Africa is still way behind other continents in terms of its overall health status. Disability is much better estimated than previously, with huge impacts on quality of life and economies at all levels.
