Fusarium infections are emerging and concomitantly interest in Fusarium is increasing as well. During the ISHAM 2015 Melbourne conference (4-8 May 2015) a Fusarium-symposium was held on different topics. Also during the TIMM meeting in (9-12 Oct 2015) such a meeting was held. With respect to the ISHAM 2018 conference in Amsterdam we are interested in organising a special Fusarium-symposium.
On the 14th of April 2016 the International Centre for Fusarium Research (ICFR) was launched. In this virtual centre worldwide experts on Fusarium will collaborate and special attention is given to clinical Fusaria. The motivation behind the centre is to raise awareness of Fusarium-related problems worldwide and increase funding possibilities. The website can be found on www.Fusarium.org and provides a direct link to the FusariumMLST database.
Several joint ventures between members of the Clinical Fusarium and fusariosis group have resulted in publications over the past year. The Atlas of Clinical Fungi, by de Hoog et al is one of the standard works for identification of medically important fungi: updates on the different clinically important Fusaria, including several recently identified species capable of human infection, have been added to the online version of the Atlas. The CBS course on Medical Mycology has been updated for the genus Fusarium as well, including different diagnostic tools available for identification.
Taxonomically Fusarium is part of a debate where a majority of the people working with the fungus want to keep a broad definition of the genus, while especially taxonomists favour a split: Lombard et al (2015) want to rename Fusarium solani to Neocosmospora solani, while F. dimerum would become Bisifusarium dimerum. As in the clinic none of these species would be treated differently, we suggest keeping Fusarium as genus name for the clinical Fusarium(-like) isolates.
