Growing levels of resistance to antifungal treatments could lead to increased disease outbreaks and affect food security around the world.

An international team, led by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Exeter, warns that improvements are needed in how existing drugs are used, as well as an increased focus on the discovery of new treatments, in order to avoid a “global collapse” in our ability to control and fight fungal infections.

The rise in resistance to antifungal treatments mirrors the well-established threat of bacteria, which have become resistant to antibiotics.

Common fungal infections include blights that affect food crops as well as yeast and mold-related infections in humans and livestock, which can be fatal for those with underlying conditions.

Researchers say many drugs used to treat fungal infections in plants and animals are in danger of becoming ineffective and fear the same could happen to those treatments used for human infections.

The findings, are reported in a review paper published in a special edition of the journal Science, and highlight an unprecedented rise in emerging strains of fungi that are resistant to common antifungal drugs.

According to the authors, overuse of existing antifungal chemicals is helping resistance to spread and is increasingly rendering treatments ineffective. This could lead to a global increase in human fungal diseases as well as increased loss of food crops and livestock to fungal pathogens.

They explain that while the issue of antibiotic resistance is well known, the scale and severity of resistance to antifungals has been “underrecognized and underappreciated.”

“The threat of antimicrobial resistance is well-established in bacteria, but has largely been neglected in fungi,” said Professor Matthew Fisher, from the School of Public Health at Imperial and first author of the study.