When people ask me “What is one area or issue you wish people paid more attention to in global health?”, I almost always say fungal diseases.
I co-authored some reports on fungal infections (e.g., this one), and my impression is that it is indeed very plausible and well-recognized by experts that fungal infections will rise in a major way as a result of climate change, though I have not seen any guesses / estimates of how large the additional burden could be.
I think the more important point is that, regardless of climate change, fungal diseases are a massive disease burden source already. Fungal disease-related deaths are plausibly on the order of ~2M/year, likely more, and it is possible that DALYs are in a similar ballpark as TB, malaria, and HIV (though again unclear, because fungal diseases aren’t even comprehensively included in IHME’s global burden of disease estimates yet).
It is also incredibly neglected, to an extent that I find almost unbelievable. Though this has recently improved a bit, with more attention / funding from the Wellcome Trust coming in.
I think one reason that people aren’t jumping on fungal diseases despite high importance and neglectedness is that tractability is tricky. Fungal disease treatments are often not very effective, expensive, difficult to administer, and have lots of side effects. Also, there are LOTS of different fungal diseases, that all affect different populations, manifest differently, and require different diagnostics/treatment. So there isn’t really an easy one-size-fits-all solution here.
I do not find it surprising that you haven’t heard about it. Lots of people I know haven’t, and there are several reasons for this that are too long to explain here (though this article might help).
Maybe helpful for you to know that Coefficient Giving have done internal research on fungal diseases (they also commissioned our work on this topic), so they might have more thoughts on this.
Hi Jenny, very interesting, thank you. What was the response of CG to your report, and do you know if they are planning to invest more resources towards this potential cause area?
I’m not able to comment on CG’s reaction to the report, as those discussions are confidential.
What I can say is that they are still exploring this area internally (given that they commissioned us to do more work related to fungal diseases recently (see here)).
I’m not aware of any specific grantmaking decisions or commitments at this stage.
Hi Sanjay,
When people ask me “What is one area or issue you wish people paid more attention to in global health?”, I almost always say fungal diseases.
I co-authored some reports on fungal infections (e.g., this one), and my impression is that it is indeed very plausible and well-recognized by experts that fungal infections will rise in a major way as a result of climate change, though I have not seen any guesses / estimates of how large the additional burden could be.
I think the more important point is that, regardless of climate change, fungal diseases are a massive disease burden source already. Fungal disease-related deaths are plausibly on the order of ~2M/year, likely more, and it is possible that DALYs are in a similar ballpark as TB, malaria, and HIV (though again unclear, because fungal diseases aren’t even comprehensively included in IHME’s global burden of disease estimates yet).
It is also incredibly neglected, to an extent that I find almost unbelievable. Though this has recently improved a bit, with more attention / funding from the Wellcome Trust coming in.
I think one reason that people aren’t jumping on fungal diseases despite high importance and neglectedness is that tractability is tricky. Fungal disease treatments are often not very effective, expensive, difficult to administer, and have lots of side effects. Also, there are LOTS of different fungal diseases, that all affect different populations, manifest differently, and require different diagnostics/treatment. So there isn’t really an easy one-size-fits-all solution here.
I do not find it surprising that you haven’t heard about it. Lots of people I know haven’t, and there are several reasons for this that are too long to explain here (though this article might help).
Maybe helpful for you to know that Coefficient Giving have done internal research on fungal diseases (they also commissioned our work on this topic), so they might have more thoughts on this.
Hi Jenny, very interesting, thank you. What was the response of CG to your report, and do you know if they are planning to invest more resources towards this potential cause area?
I’m not able to comment on CG’s reaction to the report, as those discussions are confidential.
What I can say is that they are still exploring this area internally (given that they commissioned us to do more work related to fungal diseases recently (see here)).
I’m not aware of any specific grantmaking decisions or commitments at this stage.