Two people have been infected with the first US cases of a contagious drug-resistant fungal disease.
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), two unnamed patients, aged 28 and 47, have been diagnosed with the first US known cases of the drug-resistant ringworm, called tinea.
Symptoms presented as lesions on their neck, buttocks, thighs and stomach as experts heed that fungal infections are being seen more due to warmer climates and resistant medications.
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One patient had rashes on her body in the summer of 2021 and went to doctors in December after she had large, scaly rashes across her body.
A dermatologist said she had tinea and gave her antifungal treatment in January 2022 after her child was born , however it did not help her condition.
After four-week course of the antifungal itraconazole the rash was gone.
The patient had not been abroad recently with officials believing the infection was spread locally in the US.
The second woman started getting rashes in Bangladesh. Cream application did not help by the time she returned to the US.
Her rashes spread further in 2022. Dermatologists eventually gave two four-week medication courses which helped improve the rash by 80 per cent.
Her husband and son also experienced symptoms.
The strain of ringworm was tested by officials, which came back as Trichophyton indotineae, which is currently tearing through India and other parts of South Asia.
Officials believe it is drug resistant due to medication overuse with patients becoming more susceptible to fungal infections and making fungi more resilient.
It passes through skin contact and is usually present in children.
Cases are normally treated with antifungal creams, however, sometimes these do not work and oral antifungal medication is needed to treat the fungal infection.
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