An Indian is the first human infected with a plant fungus

A 61-year-old man has become the first person in the world to contract a fungal disease from plants, amid heightened concerns about the threat they pose due to climate change and resistance to available treatments.

The unnamed man, who worked as a plant mycologist, went to hospital in the city of Calcutta, eastern India, after suffering from a hoarse voice, cough, fatigue and difficulty swallowing for three months.

Scans revealed the man had a paratracheal abscess on his neck, and when samples of pus were sent for testing it appeared he had been infected with Chondrostereum purpureum – the same fungus that causes the disease of the silver leaf in plants.

The infection comes after the hit show “The Last of Us” – which is inspired by a real bacterium that turns ants into “zombies” and can wipe out entire colonies – has raised the public profile of fungal diseases.

In this case, the 61-year-old made a full recovery after receiving two antifungal drugs for two months. However, the infection alarmed public health experts because it was not previously thought that fungal spores from plants could infect humans.

It is believed that the man had come into contact with the fungus while doing research as part of his job, which brought him into contact with decaying plants and fungi for a long time.

“There are literally hundreds of millions of fungal species and only a fraction cause infections in humans, but we are starting to see this strange phenomenon of fungal infections that were not known to cause infections in humans , now causing infections,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, the founder and chairman of One Health Trust.

“Obviously there is concern about where the next pandemic will come from and it could be caused by a fungal pathogen. But fortunately at the moment we don’t have very efficient person-to-person transmission. ‘other.