Vol1Intro

The need for addressing health risks through interdisciplinary collaboration has been formulated more than half a century ago. However, global interest for the One Health concept has taken off only recently. In 2004, The Wildlife Conservation Society formulated twelve principles to describe a unified approach to the prevention of epidemic or epizootic diseases. Since then, the viral epidemics and pandemics of Ebola, SARS, MERS and COVID have made it even more obvious that our understanding of sources, interactions and development of factors related to public health is woefully insufficient. In Europe, the limits of efficiency in modern agriculture become in sight. This is not only visible in the destruction of surrounding natural quality, but also in livestock diseases such as bird flu which has changed from occasional to enzootic.

Similar problems are apparent or expected with the fungi. We observe the emergence of novel pathogens, such as Sporothrix brasiliensis, Candida auris and Trichophyton indotineae, but we still don’t have a clue of their evolutionary origin, let alone of all the factors that have contributed to these novelties. Many of the emerging diseases are zoonotic, stemming from modern agriculture but also from wild animals, while the knowledge of wildlife diseases remains scant. Although plant pathogenicity is fundamentally different from animal disease, several severe human opportunists appear to have an unexpected relation with plants, as is proven by e.g. the neurotropic black fungus Cladophialophora bantiana having a possible endophytic habitat in sugarcane.

There are so many journals already; why a new one? It seemed to us that a journal focused on health but with a wider scope than the existing clinical journals would be welcomed. The journal will be managed and published by the team of the Foundation Atlas of Clinical Fungi, and will remain academic, entirely non-profit. We are grateful to our editorial board of outstanding mycologists for their support. This team covers all fungus-related aspects of human and animal health, as well as epidemiology, taxonomy and diagnostics of opportunistic pathogens. The journal will offer space for larger papers on any subject about fungal-related problems of all vertebrates in addition to humans, varying from infection to allergy, and covering the entire range from environmental occurrence to clinical diagnostics.

One Health Mycology will be open access, online only. As long as the journal is awaiting an impact factor, no publication fees will be charged. The journal will appear with two issues yearly from January 2024. Accepted manuscripts can be published ahead of the official publication date. We trust our readership will appreciate this new platform, and we hope this stimulates reports from neglected but significant mycological subjects.

1 July 2023

Sybren de Hoog

Open Access

ISSN: 3050-4627
doi.org/10.63049/OHM.23.11.1

Volume 1 (1): 3

Online publication date:
5 July 2023