Emergence
Fungi are exceptionally good survivors, as their spores are light, durable and capable of travelling long distances. In a destabilised climate, those survival traits become a public health risk.
Medical researchers increasingly recognise climate change as a driver of emerging fungal disease. A review published in Therapeutic Advances in Infectious Disease warns that warming temperatures and ecological disruption are redrawing the global map of disease.
We’ve already seen what this looks like with Candida auris. First identified in 2009, the multi-drug-resistant fungus has since been detected in hospitals in more than 50 countries across six continents.
Many researchers believe rising environmental temperatures may have helped it overcome the thermal barriers that once prevented fungi from infecting humans.
Dr Norman van Rhijn at the University of Manchester said: “We’ve already seen the emergence of the fungus Candida auris due to rising temperatures, but, until now, we had little information of how other fungi might respond to this change in the environment.
Vulnerable
“Fungi are relatively under researched compared to viruses and parasites, but these maps show that fungal pathogens will likely impact most areas of the world in the future.”
Histoplasma capsulatum has long been present across the Americas. Infection occurs when spores are inhaled, often after soil is disturbed by construction, wind or changes in ventilation.
In Vitória, investigators believe spores entered Santa Rita de Cássia Hospital through the air conditioning system or other structural vulnerabilities. Once inside, they encountered people least able to resist infection: immunocompromised cancer patients and overstretched healthcare workers.
Histoplasmosis often resembles flu or pneumonia, delaying diagnosis. In healthy individuals, it may resolve without treatment, but in vulnerable people, it can spread beyond the lungs and become fatal.
Resistance
Similar patterns are emerging elsewhere. Fungal diseases are appearing in new regions, linked to warming temperatures, ecological disruption and failing infrastructure.
Those most exposed are rarely those most responsible. Healthcare workers, cleaners, junior staff and patient companions are often the first affected and the last protected. Many live in hotter neighbourhoods, rely on underfunded public health systems and lack access to early diagnosis or paid leave.
The communities least responsible for fossil fuel emissions are being forced to breathe the consequences first. This is climate injustice, playing out at the microbial level.
Despite growing evidence of risk, fungal disease remains neglected. There are few antifungal drugs, rising resistance and limited surveillance. Research funding and political attention remains minimal, particularly when compared to viral threats affecting wealthier populations.
Insulated
The Santa Rita de Cássia Hospital outbreak isn’t just a medical story – it’s an ecological one. It shows how environmental disruption doesn’t stay outside hospital walls. It enters buildings through air systems, infrastructure weaknesses and assumptions of separation between human health and the natural world.
Climate change is often discussed in distant terms, such as melting ice caps, burning forests and rising seas, but its effects are already present in hospitals, workplaces and lungs.
Human health depends on stable ecosystems and when those systems destabilise, disease patterns change. The spores that circulated through a hospital in Brazil carried a message we can’t afford to ignore.
Climate change is reshaping disease, and the institutions designed to protect us are no longer insulated from the consequences.
This Author
Monica Piccinini is a regular contributor to The Ecologist and a freelance writer focused on environmental, health and human rights issues.