Antifungal Drugs: The Current Armamentarium and Development of New Agents

Disease and death caused by fungal infections have transitioned from a rare curiosity to a major global health problem. Because the vast majority of fungi capable of causing life‐threatening infections target individuals with impaired immunity, recent decades have witnessed a stark rise in fungal infections due to medical interventions such as chemotherapy for cancer and immunosuppression for organ transplantation and due to the prevalence of HIV infection (1). Pathogenic fungi are the causative agents of billions of infections annually, with ~1.5 million attributable mortalities (2). The public health burden is comparable to that observed with more notable infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, yet the impact of fungal infections on human health has been largely overlooked (3).