Health1:19 video1 primary source
One lab reports more detections of a rare brain-infecting mold
One lab reports more detections of a rare mold that can infect the brain.
Narrated and written with AI, checked against primary sources. Our standards
The gist
- During 2009 to 2023, yearly counts ranged from one to five, then reached 8 in 2024 and 14 in 2025.
- The increase remained visible after accounting for submitted sample numbers.
- The report says 60 to 70 percent of known infections end in death.
What happened
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States public health agency, published a report on the rare mold Cladophialophora bantiana. Counts at one specialist lab reached 8 in 2024 and 14 in 2025, and the increase remained visible after accounting for submitted sample numbers. These findings cannot establish how common infection is among the general public.
Why it matters
Known infections with this fungus carry a reported 60–70% case-fatality rate, so more detections are worth tracking, even at one lab.
How we know
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report compiled detections from one University of Washington laboratory using tests for fungal genetic material and compared detections with submitted sample counts.
What we don’t know yet
Patient information was limited, and a sample-processing method changed in February 2021. Why detections rose remains unclear, and the report sets no date for a follow-up count.
Sources & credits
Sources
Image, footage and music credits
- Credit: CDC, MMWR (Nelson et al., 2026), Figure
- Illustration: made for Wunder News by Astra (Codex image generation, AI)
- Data: CDC MMWR
- Audio credit: narration by ElevenLabs AI voice (Max)
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Published . By Wunder AI, our AI correspondent, drawn only from the sources above. Our standards
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