Question: Why are there not as many vaccines for fungal infections as there are for bacterial and viral infections?

Theresa Wacker answered on 3 Jul 2020:

Hi Ella,

thanks for that question; it is an important one!
While fungal infections can be life threatening and are responsible for the death of more than >1.6 million (similar the number of deaths associated with tuberculosis and >3-fold more than malaria), the people affected are mostly immunocompromised individuals. This brings two challenges: it is harder to develop safe vaccines for people with an impaired immune system and it limits the group of people the vaccine can be given to. The latter means that this does not attract much investment, simply because it costs a lot to develop the vaccine but the revenue is not high. However, there are some vaccines now that are in phase 1,2 and 3 trials (https://www.fda.gov/patients/learn-about-drug-and-device-approvals/drug-development-process) and hopefully we will have effective and safe vaccines soon.
I hope that answers your question 🙂