A fast-spreading fungus that can silently destroy organs from the inside out is gaining ground across the United States—and the real danger may not be rising temperatures, but rising drug resistance.
The culprit is Aspergillus fumigatus, a microscopic mold found in soil, compost, and decaying plants. While harmless to most, it can cause invasive aspergillosis, a deadly infection that targets people with weakened immune systems—cancer patients, transplant recipients, and those with HIV or chronic lung disease.
Unlike more well-known illnesses, this infection isn’t tracked nationally. That means thousands of cases may go unnoticed until it’s too late. In fact, the CDC doesn’t require hospitals to report it, despite ICU autopsy studies ranking it among the top four infections most likely to result in death.
What’s fueling the threat? Antibiotic resistance. Farmers across the U.S. use azole antifungal drugs on crops, the same class of medication doctors rely on to treat infected patients. This overlap has led to drug-resistant strains of A. fumigatus emerging in farm soil in at least seven states, according to a recent study in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. When humans inhale these resistant spores, treatment becomes much harder—and often fails.
The World Health Organization has named A. fumigatus a “critical priority” pathogen due to its resistance and high mortality rate. Roughly 15,000 hospitalizations were recorded for aspergillosis by 2014, costing the healthcare system over $1.2 billion annually.
Experts are now calling for urgent action—more accurate testing, new antifungal drugs, and better clinical training to detect and treat these infections early.
“This isn’t science fiction,” warns Dr. Vyas of Columbia University. “These infections are real, and we’re not ready.”
