Rhodosporbolus fluvialis has never been detected in humans until now. The fungus has been found in the clinical samples of two deceased patients, revealing that it is capable of surviving in humans, which is rare in fungi due to the high temperatures of human bodies. It also shows great resistance to drugs.
Evolves with the heat
As reported by Medium magazine, Chinese scientists have detected Rhodosporbolus fluvialis in samples from two patients who died in 2013 and 2016. In the national survey of fungal strains isolated from patients from 96 hospitals in China from 2009 to 2019, this organism was never detected. However, it was recently discovered in samples from two patients who died in 2013 and 2016 who were receiving antifungal treatment, that the fungus resisted, as is happening in the United States with Candida auris.
In any case, before opening the door to sensationalism, we must clarify that the fungus was not the direct cause of his death. The patients were a 61-year-old person admitted for kidney pain who died of multi-organ failure and an 85-year-old who died of respiratory failure. Both were receiving anti-comic treatment as a complement to their treatment, but the fungus was not what killed them, at least it was not the direct cause.
This does not mean that it is not worrying. David Denning, one of Europe’s leading experts on fungi, has published a study in the journal Nature that indicates that this fungus has a high capacity for mutation, enhanced by the high human body temperature, and that at 37º it mutates 21 times faster than at 25º. The scenario is even trickier due to global warming, which is possibly accelerating its evolution, giving it resistance to typically human temperatures.
Its evolution due to rising temperatures could occur both in Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis and in other fungi. Some of these organisms incapable of living in human hosts due to their temperature could develop the ability to do so due to global warming, with the danger that entails, although it is also true that it would not be the first time this has happened.
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