Journal of Fungi Article Estimated Burden of Fungal Infections in Namibia Cara M. Dunaiski 1,* and David W. Denning 2 1 Department of Health and Applied Sciences, Namibia University of Science and Technology, 13 Jackson Kaujeua Street, Windhoek 9000, Namibia 2 National Aspergillosis Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital and the University of Manchester, Manchester M23 9LT, UK * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +264 61 207 2891 Received: 30 June 2019; Accepted: 13 August 2019; Published: 16 August 2019 Abstract: Namibia is a sub-Saharan country with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Although care and support services are available that cater for opportunistic infections related to HIV, the main focus is narrow and predominantly aimed at tuberculosis. We aimed to estimate the burden of serious fungal infections in Namibia, currently unknown, based on the size of the population at risk and available epidemiological data. Data were obtained from the World Health Organization (WHO), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and published reports. When no data existed, risk populations were used to estimate the frequencies of fungal infections, using the previously described methodology. The population of Namibia in 2011 was estimated at 2,459,000 and 37% were children. Among approximately 516,390 adult women, recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis ( 4 episodes /year) is estimated to occur in 37,390 (3003/100,000 females). Using a low international ≥ average rate of 5/100,000, we estimated 125 cases of candidemia, and 19 patients with intra-abdominal candidiasis. Among survivors of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) in Namibia 2017, 112 new cases of chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (CPA) are likely, a prevalence of 354 post-TB and a total prevalence estimate of 453 CPA patients in all.