The Medical Mycological Iceberg: A Study of Incidence and Prevalence

ANY attempt to quantitate the impact of the mycoses Ion public health is doomed to fail- ure.Since they are not classified among the notifiable diseases, hard data on their incidence and prevalence, as well as information on the morbidity and mortality they cause, are either fragmen- tary or simply not available.The situation that confronts us can well be likened to an iceberg.The only visible portions of the vast bulk of the mycoses problem are a few peaks and crags.Even these are only dimly re- vealed at best by the scattered reports that are available on the incidence and prevalence of fungus infections.Data on the number of persons affected by my-