It has been reported that blood tests of two deceased men in China revealed a previously unknown yeast fungus, which has been given the scientific name Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis.
According to an article published in June 2024 in the journal Nature Microbiology, this fungus was found to be highly resistant to common antifungal medications typically administered to patients with high fever.
It is suggested that this pathogen likely emerged due to the abnormally hot weather that has prevailed worldwide over the past decade, as the heat caused it to mutate and become dangerous to humans.
Scientists made this discovery quite by accident while analyzing fungal strains in blood samples from patients in 96 hospitals across China between 2009 and 2019. The two men, one aged 61 and the other 85, in whose blood the unknown fungus was found, were not related to each other.
One patient died in 2013, the other in 2016, so it is unknown how many undetected cases of infection by this fungus exist today and whether this fungus was indeed the cause of death for the mentioned men.
Doctors only know that this fungus is new, it thrives in the human body at elevated temperatures (at 37 degrees Celsius), and it is not affected by common antifungal drugs like fluconazole and caspofungin.
“This is a remarkable and truly unexpected discovery, which bodes ill for the future,” commented Professor David Denning, an infectious disease specialist from the University of Manchester, UK, on the scientific article.
The article suggests that severe fungal infections generally affect people with weakened immune systems. One of the deceased men had diabetes, and the other was taking immunosuppressants.
After identifying the new pathogen, Chinese scientists conducted an experiment on laboratory mice by infecting them with Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis. It was found that in the mice’s bodies, this fungus mutated in some cases and began to reproduce even more aggressively. At a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, this fungus mutated 21 times faster than at the normal room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.
Additionally, at high temperatures, the fungus became even more resistant to antifungal drugs.
This situation with the new yeast fungus dangerous to humans is reminiscent of the discovery of another yeast fungus, Candida auris, in 2009. Since then, this fungus, which causes the disease invasive candidiasis, has been identified in 40 countries. However, few serious scientists currently consider yeast fungi as a significant threat to humanity, and the specific case of the death of two men in China is regarded as a mere coincidence.
