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Mycetoma is a chronic granulomatous deep mycosis that causes debilitating lesions, caused by fungal or bacterial implantation through the skin. In Uganda, Richard Kwizera, Dr Felix Bongomin and colleagues in Kampala published a 69 year retrospective study of all biopsy reports produced by the Pathology Reference Laboratory at Makerere University from 1950 to 2019 (249… Read more »

First described in in 1948 and acknowledged as a separate clinical entity in 1953, many patients with chronic pulmonary histoplasmosis (CPH) languished in US tuberculosis sanatoriums, until picked out in the 1950’s. In one sanatorium in Missouri, 7.2% of ‘TB patients’ actually had CPH. In a review just published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, Jacob… Read more »

  Several lung fungal infections can be mistaken for TB – histoplasmosis, aspergillosis, coccidioidomycosis and paracoccidioidomycosis.  Antibody testing and fungal culture of sputum are the means of establishing the diagnosis. The number of incident cases of these fungal infections varies substantially by region and country and the rate of misdiagnosis of TB-like fungal infections is not… Read more »

  Writing in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Marcio Rodrigues and Joshua Nosanchuk highlight the numerous reasons why fungal diseases are so neglected. They point to a science failure – including inadequate funding. They detail research funding for different diseases by numbers of deaths: malaria $1,315 , tuberculosis $334, diarrhoeal diseases $276, compared with $31 for… Read more »

In a ground-breaking development for patients with AIDS, the world’s first lateral flow assay able to detect Histoplasma antigen has been launched by MiraVista Diagnostics, based in Indianapolis, USA. Diego Cáceres and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) independently evaluated the new LFA in serum samples from patients and controls in… Read more »

A recent CDC Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report estimated the incidence of candidaemia in the US at around 9/100,000 which equates to >28,000 cases annually, with an overall mortality of 25%. 10% of cases are in IV drug abusers, 33% in diabetics and 17% in cancer patients.

A team from Guatemala has published a new approach to diagnosing AIDS-related lethal fungal infections and tuberculosis (TB) in the prestigious journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases. Supported by the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (GAFFI) the Asociación de Salud Integral shows how by providing access to rapid diagnostics and focussed training, LMICs can deliver… Read more »

The extra cost to save 1 in 5 deaths from cryptococcal meningitis in AIDS is $973 according to Tinevimbo Shiri and colleagues. Using data from the ACTA trial, and assuming 14 days dual therapy with fluconazole and flucytosine, mortality falls from 53.8% to 35.1% over 10 weeks, and more over the following weeks. The additional… Read more »

  At the invitation of the Chair of Global Health sub-committee Heike Baehrens, GAFFI’s plea for more investment into saving lives and reducing symptoms caused by fungal diseases.  As part of the One Health concept, GAFFI’s Chief Executive Professor David Denning and Senior Medical Adviser Professor Juan Luis Rodriguez Tudela spoke at the hour-long meeting… Read more »

Estimates of the incidence and prevalence of fungal infections were presented this week at TIMM2019 (Nice, France) for a further 5 countries: Morocco, Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.