The number of deaths related to fungal infections is complicated to measure and as a result likely underreported. The updated mortality rate is almost double that of past estimates, according to a study published Jan. 12 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The study focused on a systemic review of 85 pieces of literature from 2010 to 2023 on individual country and global disease burden. From the data, researchers estimate that annually 6.55 million people are affected by invasive fungal infections across the globe. Of that, fungal infection is linked to 3.8 million deaths — 2.55 million of which are directly attributable to fungal disease.
These numbers are higher than previous estimates, which placed deaths due to fungal infection at nearly half that number, between 1.5 million and 2 million annually, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
While these are, in fact, estimations only and limited by the availability of epidemiologic data on fungal infections from certain countries as well as variables from undiagnosed conditions, the study highlights that clinical awareness and further research are needed to fully understand the scale.
Investing in this area could help "reduce the substantial number of mostly avoidable premature deaths from life-threatening fungal disease," David Denning, PhD, study author and professor at the University of Manchester in England wrote.
Even the U.S. lacks data and reporting on fungal infections. It is one of the areas in which more public health surveillance and tools to facilitate it are needed, Tom Chiller, MD, CDC's head of mycotic diseases, told Becker's in an August 2023 interview.
"We don't have good surveillance for fungal infections," Dr. Chiller said. "A lot of our information is piecemeal or is institutional. We don't have a national fungal surveillance system. So it's often hard to say with definitive facts and data that things are increasing or decreasing, staying the same."
Lacking large scale reporting systems of this sort, Dr. Chiller advises clinicians to "think fungus" with every patient and be vigilant for symptoms in patients that reflect fungal infections and consider that as a possible diagnosis.