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Enigmatic fungus causes pneumonia
September 03, 2001The origin of a fungus that causes pneumonia in people with poor immune systems is a mystery, medical experts heard today (Thursday 13 September 2001) at the bi-annual meeting of the Society of General Microbiology at the University of East Anglia.
Dr Robert Miller of the Royal Free and University College Medical School, London" says, “ the majority of healthy children and adults have antibodies to the fungus Pneumocystis carinii but we cannot detect it in fluid or lung tissue from healthy individuals. Apart from those patients with P. carinii pneumonia the fungus can only be found in a small number of HIV positive or mildly immunosuppressed patients who have other respiratory diseases. So the source of new infections of this disease, which affects approximately 150 immunocompromised patients in the UK each year, is unknown.”
According to Dr Miller, “There are many different species of P. carinii, which affect man and other mammals. However studies of the genetics of the fungus have shown that it is not possible to pass infection from different host species to man so we know that animals are not the source of the infections.”
“We now think that there must be a small infectious reservoir of the disease in otherwise healthy people with chronic obstructive lung disease, such as people with cystic fibrosis or cancer, and they are acting as a focus for transmission to immunosuppressed patients,” says Dr Miller.
“If our theories are correct than this could have implications for how we handle people with P. carinii pneumonia in hospitals and in the community. It may be necessary to keep patients with P. carinii pneumonia in respiratory isolation from other immunosuppressed patients. It should also inform decisions about rational use of preventative treatments in targeted immunosuppressed groups, ” says Dr Miller.
Society for General Microbiology
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