Pathogenic Fungi - Neglected Infectious Agents? A Commentary on the Gambian Situation

This Commentary is aimed at examining the current attitude of healthcare providers towards pathogenic fungi, with more emphasis on The Gambia setting, and to make recommendations for better infectious disease diagnosis and management. It is a known fact that fungi are important infectious diseases causative agents, clinicians however hardly request for medical mycology laboratory tests either because they choose to treat empirically or due to lack of competent mycology laboratories around. Various literature reviewed shows that some signs and symptoms of fungal infections are similar to those caused by bacteria and viruses or both; therefore, there are possibilities of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis of some diseases. Further mycological studies among Gambian population and inclusion of pathogenic fungal investigations in routine disease diagnosis should be considered.