Latest news with #fungalinfection
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE How your compost heap can hide a lethal superfungus that destroys lungs and kills 85 per cent of those infected. Doctors warn of growing threat as sufferer Lisa says: 'My life was stripped away.' Special report by JOHN NAISH
Lisa McNeil, 54, a married mother of two from Blackpool, knows all too well the gruelling rigours of living with a chronic fungal infection. For the past 13 years she's had to take highly toxic medication to keep the potentially lethal fungus at bay – including one drug so poisonous that no one can be in the room with her when she administers it.
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Family vacation takes hellish turn as relatives come down with cancer-like disease
A family vacation to Costa Rica turned into a trip from hell after 12 of 13 relatives were diagnosed with a potentially fatal fungal infection. The family, who traveled from Texas, Washington and Georgia, had been exploring the Venado Caves in the north of the country, which involved crawling through tight spaces to see scores of live bats. After returning to the US the following week, 12 family members had started to fall sick with a fever, headache, muscle pain, night sweats, breathing problems and indigestion. Five sought help from doctors, while one was hospitalized after scans showed changes in the lungs that looked like lung cancer. The family was eventually diagnosed with histoplasmosis — a bat-linked infection caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. People become infected after inhaling spores of the fungus that thrive in bat feces. Doctors say up to 40 percent of people with serious cases die from the disease, which infects the lungs and in serious cases spreads to other organs including the brain and spinal cord. No family members died from the infection, and within 28 days of the cave visit — and following treatment — all were making a recovery. But the CDC, which investigated the cases, said it underscored the dangers of visiting bat-infested caves and crawling through feces. The news comes on the eve of the finale of The Last of Us season two, a hit HBO series where the modern world is turned on its head after whole cities are infected with a fungus that turns them into rabid zombies. Histoplasmosis is often misdiagnosed or diagnosed late because it symptoms, which are similar to pneumonia, can be mistaken for a bacteria or fungus. The fungus behind the infection is spread in bird and bat droppings, and also lives in the soil — including in the central and eastern US. It does not spread between people, and also does not spread between animals if they become infected with the fungus. Revealing the cases in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, the CDC said only one family member did not get sick — the individual who did not go on the cave tour. The family visited the caves on Christmas Eve 2024. They were in Costa Rica for a week, from December 21 to 28. Of the sick patients, six family members were adults aged between 42 and 49 years old and six were children, aged between eight and 16 years old. Only two family members tested positive for the fungus out of the four tested using a swab for fungus-fighting antibodies in the blood. Researchers said more family members were likely infected, however, adding that in more mild cases it can be difficult to detect the antibodies in tests. The other 11 patients were suspected to have the disease, given the trip and their links to the patient who tested positive. The caves were also linked to a histoplasmosis outbreak between 1998 and 1999 that sickened 51 people, including tourists and Costa Rican residents. Tests carried out on bat feces samples from the cave revealed they contained the fungus that causes the disease. Symptoms appeared within eight to 19 days of visiting the caves, with no family members reporting other sources of infection since the trip. Doctors are recommended to prescribe the antifungal itraconazole to treat the infection, but only in more serious cases. In mild cases of the fungal infection, the disease normally goes away on its own. Some family members were initially prescribed antibiotics, which is not recommended because these could worsen the infection. The prescriptions suggest that the fungal infection was not initially suspected. The CDC says the fungus that causes histoplasmosis lives along the Ohio and Mississippi river deltas. It has been detected in states in eastern, southern and midwestern areas of the country. The American Thoracic Society estimates that up to 250,000 people suffer from histoplasmosis in the US every year. Few of these cases are formally diagnosed and reported, however, with only about 4,600 cases recorded annually according to CDC data.
Gizmodo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
U.S. Family Infected With Airborne Fungal Disease After Touring Bat-Filled Caves
A family vacation to Costa Rica turned sour after 12 of 13 relatives developed symptoms of a fungal lung infection following an excursion through bat-filled caves. In season two of The Last of Us, the cordyceps fungus—spoiler alert—becomes airborne, meaning the fungal infection can spread not just through bites but also when humans inhale its spores. While the TV show is highly fictitious, airborne fungi are most certainly not. A U.S. family now knows this better than most, since 12 of their members became ill after touring a bat cave in Costa Rica. In a paper published Thursday in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers described 12 confirmed or probable cases of histoplasmosis: a pulmonary infection caused by inhaling the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. This fungus lives in soil, frequently alongside bird or bat droppings, and can become airborne if the earth is disturbed. While symptoms are usually subtle, the infection can make infants and immunocompromised people vulnerable to more serious illnesses. During a vacation to Costa Rica in December of last year, 12 of 13 family members toured the bat-colonized Venado Caves, an ancient cave system and popular tourist destination. This essentially meant crawling through bat poop for two hours. When they returned to the U.S., everyone—except the one family member who hadn't toured the cave—became ill to varying degrees, with symptoms including fever, headache, muscle pain, night sweats, respiratory problems, and gastrointestinal issues. Five family members sought medical attention. Doctors tested four of them for fungal infections, and two tested positive for histoplasma. Two of the patients also had abnormal chest X-rays, one of which raised concern for possible lung cancer. After learning about their spelunking expedition, healthcare providers notified the CDC, which launched an investigation. Notably, the cave they had visited had also likely caused a histoplasmosis outbreak in 1998 and 1999. 'Antigen testing for all four patients occurred within 1 month of symptom onset, the optimal time frame,' the team, led by CDC researchers, wrote in the report. 'However, because antigen detection sensitivity for histoplasmosis is lower in patients with mild disease who are immunocompetent, the negative test results might have been false negatives.' In other words, given that it's harder to detect histoplasmosis in healthy patients, the family members who tested negative might still have had histoplasmosis. Ultimately, doctors confirmed that one family member had histoplasmosis, eight members probably did, and three were suspected of having it. Fortunately, none of them became zombies—or had lung cancer—and within 28 days of exposure, they were all on their way to recovery. While doctors usually prescribe antifungal medication for patients with severe histoplasmosis, many cases in healthy individuals go away on their own. Histoplasmosis is sometimes difficult to diagnose. As such, the researchers urge clinicians to 'consider fungal illness in the differential diagnosis of patients with constitutional or pulmonary signs or symptoms after recent caving or other activities associated with risk for histoplasmosis,' they concluded. In collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica and the Costa Rica Ministry of Health, the CDC hopes to see the risk of histoplasmosis included in the Venado Caves tour waiver forms. It's not surprising that The Last of Us is so popular. After all, Andrzej Sapkowski—author of The Witcher—wrote that 'there's a grain of truth in every fairy tale.' That seems to hold true, even in a fungal zombie apocalypse.
