AUTHOR=Almeida Fausto , Rodrigues Marcio L. , Coelho Carolina 

TITLE=The Still Underestimated Problem of Fungal Diseases Worldwide

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.00214

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2019.00214

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<p>In the past few years, fungal diseases caused estimated over 1.6 million deaths annually and over one billion people suffer from severe fungal diseases (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B12">Brown et al., 2012</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B6">Anonymous, 2017b</xref>). Public health surveillance of fungal diseases is generally not compulsory, suggesting that most estimates are conservative (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B14">Casadevall, 2017</xref>; <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B5">Anonymous, 2017a</xref>). Fungal disease can also damage plants and crops, causing major losses in agricultural activities and food production (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B54">Savary et al., 2012</xref>). Animal pathogenic fungi are threatening bats, amphibians and reptiles with extinction (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B14">Casadevall, 2017</xref>). It is estimated that fungi are the highest threat for animal-host and plant-host species, representing the major cause (approximately 65%) of pathogen-driven host loss (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B27">Fisher et al., 2012</xref>). In this complex scenario, it is now clear that the global warming and accompanying climate changes have resulted in increased incidence of many fungal diseases (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B28">Garcia-Solache and Casadevall, 2010</xref>). On the basis of all these factors, concerns on the occurrence of a pandemic of fungal origin in a near future have been raised (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B14">Casadevall, 2017</xref>). In this context, to stop forgetting and underestimating fungal diseases is mandatory.</p>