The researchers point to an emerging fungal pathogen, Candida auris, as the canary in the coal mine.
The reports suggest that presently, a total of thirty countries and more are experiencing this danger.
According to a CDC fact sheet, the fungus can cause "blood stream infections" and is often spread in hospitals and between nursing home patients. The fungus can lead to infections of the bloodstream, heart or brain, and early studies estimate that it is fatal in 30% to 60% of patients. Genetically distinct versions of the fungus have sprung up simultaneously in India, South Africa and South America, perplexing researchers in the process.
Fungal infections in humans are rare.
"We think that C. auris may be the first example of a fungal species that has jumped the thermal barrier due to adapting to global warming", says lead author Arturo Casadevall, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of molecular microbiology and immunology and infectious diseases.
They found that it is more capable of growing at higher temperatures than other fungi, and argue that adaptation to higher temperatures is a likely contributing factor in the emergence of C. auris in humans. "What this study suggests is this is the beginning of fungi adapting to higher temperatures, and we are going to have more and more problems as the century goes on".
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'What is unusual about Candida auris is that it appeared in three different continents at the same time, ' said Dr Arturo Casadevall. Something happened to allow this organism to bubble up and cause disease'. "But the one thing they have in common is that the world is getting warmer".
Casadevall said the study provides a direction for further research.
But climate change could be increasing the tolerance of fungi to warmer temperatures, making them more likely to infect humans, Casadevall and his colleagues claim. They noticed the majority of them can not survive in the warm temperatures of the human body, leading them to believe that this fungus may have adapted to higher temperatures. "However, we do know that fungi are very susceptible to changes in the environment and would want to understand better what effects changes have in this and other species", Chiller said in an email in response to Casadevall's paper. His own theory for how it emerged so suddenly around the world: "We're dealing with a piece of equipment or medication that was being contaminated with this organism in the manufacturing process, but we've never been able to prove that". (The fungus was discovered in a Japanese woman's ear in 2009; "auris" is Latin for ear.) In June 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a clinical alert about the pathogen.
It was initially identified in 2009 in Japan and reported early in the US after mid-2015.
Australia's Department of Health and three of the country's states are investigating three Listeria monocytogenes cases with smoked salmon as the likely source.
In the U.S. there have been 587 reported cases, mostly in New York, New Jersey and IL. Agreed the patients can take in antifungal drugs, but the yeast is resistant.
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