Bringing fungal infections in from the cold.

There are many infectious diseases clamouring for attention, with varying levels of success. However, fungal infections seem be an entire category that is almost ignored by default. To raise the profi le of these infections and to show how tackling them might benefi t other ambitious goals to address infections such as HIV and tuberculosis, the Global Action Fund for Fungal Infections (GAFFI) have launched their roadmap 95-95 by 2025. In keeping with many other global infectious disease targets, this title highlights the ultimate aim of the roadmap, in this case to “ensure that 95% of people with serious fungal disease are diagnosed and 95% treated by 2025“. At its launch, the president of GAFFI, David Denning, said “we propose a systematic approach to greatly reducing deaths and disease from fungal disease, using tried and tested rapid diagnosis and antifungal therapy“. Most striking is the lack of availability of diagnostics and drugs, although in many cases, this is not because we are waiting for new developments. For example, amphotericin B, an antifungal available since 1959, is still not available in 76 countries. Also, advances in the diagnoses of fungal pneumonia and meningitis made in the past 15 years are still not available in most countries. Then there is a problem that is becoming increasingly familiar in the infectious diseases field: other drugs are “excessively expensive“.