A new fungal infection called Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis was recently discovered in two human patients in China, scientists revealed in June.
The infection was discovered in samples from two separate hospital patients, according to a study published in the journal Nature Microbiology. R. fluvialis was resistant to a number of first-line antifungal medications such as fluconazole as caspofungin, at temperatures around that of the human body, and developed into “hypervirulent mutants” in lab mice.
Researchers uncovered the infectious substance while examining fungi from patient samples from 96 hospitals throughout China between 2009 and 2019. Of the 27,100 strains collected and analyzed by the team, R. fluuvialis was the only one to have never been identified in humans.
Fungal outbreaks are a real threat https://t.co/jc5THes3Mb
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“This is a remarkable and truly unexpected finding, which bodes badly for the future,” University of Manchester infectious disease professor David Denning told Science (he was not involved with the study). But Imperial College London professor of fungal diseases, Matthew Fisher, seemed to disagree. “My kind of first feeling here is that there are unsurveyed environments in China where these yeasts dwell, and that these two patients have been unlucky enough to be exposed,” he told Science.
It’s thought that the fungal infection would mostly impact people with weakened immune systems due to things like HIV or taking immunosuppressant drugs. There were no indications from the researchers as to whether the infection contributed to the cause of death, just that they were each treated with antifungal medications. (RELATED: Horrifying Study Suggests Fungal Disease Outbreaks Will Become More Common In Humans)
Both patients in the study had significant underlying health conditions and were in intensive care units (ICU), but were otherwise totally unrelated. The first was a 61-year-old who died in Nanjing in 2013 and was immunosuppressed. The other was an 85-year-old from Tianjin who died at age 85 in 2016. The patient suffered from diabetes, which hinders immune function.
