The WHO fungal priority pathogens list as a game-changer

(Nature) Invasive fungal diseases are on the increase globally. The World Health Organization fungal priority pathogens list highlights fungi of critical or high importance to human health and provides pathways for action. The report calls for improved surveillance (diagnostics and antifungal resistance monitoring), research and innovation (implementation research) and public-health interventions. In late 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the first fungal priority pathogens list — the WHO FPPL¹. Inspired by the success of the bacterial priority pathogens list — the WHO BPPL — in 2017, the listing of 19 groups of human fungal pathogens that are associated with serious risk of mortality or morbidity seeks to guide research, development and public-health actions against the invasive fungal diseases (IFDs) that they cause. This formal recognition by the WHO brings to the fore a group of infections that have been perennially neglected in terms of the awareness and research funding needed to combat the increasingly destructive diseases that they cause.