WHO warns of health crisis due to small pool of anti-fungal meds

New Delhi: One of the most painful memories of the Covid-19 pandemic was families of patients suffering from a serious fungal infection called mucormycosis struggling to find drugs to treat the condition. In many cases, they couldn't get it in time leading to complications and even death.

While the intensity of the drug crisis may have waned with the end of the pandemic, doctors say, the struggle to manage fungal infections continues due to the scarcity of antifungal drugs and growing resistance against the existing ones.

A first-of-its-kind report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) warns that if steps are not taken to increase the pool of antifungal medications soon, the shortage may lead to a public health crisis .

"Invasive fungal infections threaten the lives of the most vulnerable, but countries lack the treatments needed to save lives," said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance ad interim.

He said, "Not only is the pipeline of new antifungal drugs and diagnostics insufficient, but there is also a void in fungal testing in low- and middle-income countries, even in district hospitals. This diagnostic gap means the cause of people's suffering remains unknown, making it difficult to get them right treatments."

Dr Rajesh Chawla, a critical care specialist at Delhi's Indraprastha Apollo hospital said even now they keep getting patients with serious fungal infections and it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage them because in many cases the fungi causing the infection are found to be resistant to existing drugs.