Indian patients undergoing critical care treatments are more prone to life threatening fungal infections. The healthcare providers in the country are yet to have an efficient diagnostic system to check this serious problem, Prof David W Denning, a UK physician has opined.

Addressing a scientific session on 'fungal infections' here on January 21, Prof Denning, a leading physician at Manchester's University Hospitals, shared his expertise in fungal infections, particularly aspergillosis, anti fungal resistance and the treatment of fungal infection with Indian medical experts.

According to his observations, about fungal infection and healthcare scenario in India, at least 10 % of kidney transplantation cases in India are prone to such infections. The percentage of incidence is just 0.5 in developed countries like the US or UK.

"The probability of fungal infections in an ICU of a large Indian hospital is 20% as against 9% in developed nations. The fungal infections in bone marrow transplant cases are as high as 20% in India. The main reason for this high incidence is the inadequate or inaccurate diagnostic methods. Better management of fungal infections can bring down the mortality rates by 50%"," said Prof. Denning.

Prof Denning wants India to develop more expertise in managing the infections through better strategies for diagnostic tests, addressing the issue of anti fungal resistance, frequency of resistance etc. He felt that there are not enough people who are really dedicated to this cause. The scarcity of good laboratories was also highlighted as one of the main causes.

Prof. Denning's talk outlined the epidemiology of various fungal infections, fungal host factors and treatment of fungal infection in the immunocompromised patients. He presented medical case studies on immunosuppression, immune reconstitution and immunotherapy. Anti fungal resistance and clinical studies of new anti fungal agents and aspergillus genomics was also dealt with.

Later, talking to Pharmabiz.com, Prof. Denning talked about his research programmes in aspergillus antigen tests. He is also studying the relationship between asthma and fungal infections. This area of research provides exiting opportunities for pharmaceutical industry, he said.

Prof. Denning is also the founder and chairman of F2G Limited, a small R&D firm based in UK.