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I'm Claudia Hammond. Welcome to Healthcheck

0:40

from the BBC. I'm here for

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the next half an hour with

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the latest on health and medicine

0:46

from around the world. We'll explore

0:49

the link between some common gynecological

0:51

disorders and cardiovascular disease. And I

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taught to the prize-winning researcher, trying

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to transform care for marginalised people

0:58

with schizophrenia in Guatemala. and throughout

1:00

today's show I'm joined by global

1:02

health journalists and health check regular

1:05

Andrew Green. Now usually you join

1:07

us from Berlin but where are you

1:09

today Andrew? So today I'm actually in

1:11

Kampala, Uganda. And what are you there looking

1:13

at? So I'm here looking at what

1:15

is actually taking place on the ground

1:18

with the collapse of US global health

1:20

funding focusing specifically on what the impact

1:22

is on the HIV response in the

1:24

country. Now there are some developments on

1:26

this with the news that a federal

1:28

judge in the US has blocked the

1:30

Trump administration from taking any further steps

1:33

to shut down the US agency for

1:35

international development. What does the judge said

1:37

and what does this mean? So he ruled

1:39

that the dismantling of USAID was likely

1:42

unconstitutional, since it was done by Elon

1:44

Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency,

1:46

and they usurped the authority of the

1:48

US Congress, which both created the agency

1:51

and then has the responsibility to close

1:53

it if that's the decision. So he

1:55

said that at least part of the

1:57

agency's operations need to be restored immediately.

1:59

like getting email access back online, electronic

2:02

records, and that, as you said, the

2:04

government can't do anything else to dismantle

2:06

the organization. But I mean, the practical

2:08

reality is that it's essentially already dismantled.

2:11

So it's not at all clear that

2:13

anything's going to kind of snap back

2:15

quickly into place or that people are

2:17

going to be back in their jobs

2:19

or money's going to be flowing quickly.

2:22

So as you said, you're looking at

2:24

the impacts of the cuts so far

2:26

in Uganda. Are they already making a

2:28

difference? huge disruption in the HIV services

2:31

and just broadly for all health services

2:33

in this country. We saw when the

2:35

funding freeze came into place initially about

2:37

40 days ago, all HIV services kind

2:39

of essentially came to a halt except

2:42

for some of the government run services

2:44

through the main hospitals and clinics. And

2:46

they're really, you know, even with the

2:48

waivers that have been issued by the

2:50

US government and these court orders that

2:53

have come into place, you're really only

2:55

seeing services very slowly come back. And

2:57

it's revealed, I think, just how dependent

2:59

the Uganda health system was on US

3:02

funding in this way that you can't

3:04

just kind of put some pieces back

3:06

in place because that still leaves major

3:08

gaps like logistics officers in charge of

3:10

ordering medicines or someone who does HIV

3:13

testing at the National Reference Laboratory. Like

3:15

those, those people still aren't back in

3:17

their positions, which means. the broader HIV

3:19

infrastructure is also not back in place.

3:22

So does that mean that there are

3:24

already people who are say taking anti-retroviral

3:26

drugs because they're HIV positive who won't

3:28

be able to take those now? So

3:30

what we're definitely hearing is that people

3:33

who are on treatment usually could get

3:35

up to six months of refill at

3:37

a time and that's been really cut

3:39

down. So people are going to clinics

3:42

coming home with like two weeks worth.

3:44

And that's creating, as you can imagine,

3:46

a lot of panic because then they're

3:48

not quite sure when they go back

3:50

in two weeks whether medicine is going

3:53

to be there. Even harder hit has

3:55

been the prevention services. So that's just

3:57

almost completely. collapsed and so the real

3:59

concern among advocates civil society government officials

4:02

is that you know three months six

4:04

months from now you're going to see

4:06

an explosion in new HIV cases that

4:08

you know was preventable and avoidable. Now

4:10

another recent ruling said that USAID must

4:13

pay its bills for work that's already

4:15

been done so have they not been

4:17

paying the bills then? That's right you

4:19

know so The work has been done

4:22

for USAID to the tune of billions

4:24

of dollars by organizations, groups around the

4:26

world. These are people that did the

4:28

work, that employed the staff, that used

4:30

their resources already, and are now billing

4:33

the US government for the money to

4:35

pay for the work that they did,

4:37

and they're just not getting it. And

4:39

so that effectively means that people who

4:42

did this work are just going unpaid

4:44

at the moment. So after this ruling,

4:46

will they now get paid? Well, that's

4:48

a great question. So the Trump administration

4:50

has really been dragging their feet on

4:53

adhering to the judge's ruling in that

4:55

case. So even though this ruling came

4:57

out days ago, money has not gone

4:59

out the door. And there's a real

5:02

sense that they might not ever get

5:04

these bills paid. And could other organizations

5:06

still step in or is this a

5:08

whole reset of how health care is

5:10

funded in some of the poorest parts

5:13

of the world? It does

5:15

seem, given some of the other announcements

5:17

that have come out, that this is

5:19

just a global reset, as you said.

5:22

I mean, we saw, thinking about bilateral

5:24

donors, we saw the United Kingdom say

5:26

that they're cutting global aid. We saw

5:29

Switzerland pool funding from UN AIDS. In

5:31

Germany, where I live, there's talks with

5:33

the new government coming into place about

5:36

drastic cuts to aid. So that, you

5:38

know, there's no major bilateral donor that's

5:40

going to step in and fill in

5:43

for the US. You know donor community

5:45

is obviously worried and you've seen a

5:47

lot of the major donors like the

5:50

Gates Foundation say that they're going to

5:52

do what they can. But the Gates

5:54

Foundation has their entire endowment is on

5:57

par with what the US spends annually

5:59

about $74 billion. So there's no way

6:01

that you know it. a donor can

6:04

step in and fill the role that

6:06

the United States was playing. So on

6:08

the ground, what are organizations telling you

6:11

about their plans for looking elsewhere for

6:13

funding? Where are they going to try

6:15

and get it? So almost every person

6:18

that I interview ends the interview by

6:20

asking me if I can help them

6:22

set up a go fund me account.

6:25

There's really, they're seeing very few other

6:27

sources, you know, there's a lot of

6:29

pressure from civil society here on the

6:32

Ugandan government to fill the funding gap.

6:34

But it's not, there's questions about how

6:36

sustainable that is. So perhaps they could

6:39

do some emergency funding measures that would

6:41

get the major HIV health infrastructure back

6:43

in place, but it's not clear at

6:46

all how long they could sustain that.

6:48

And so then you do see government

6:50

officials thinking creatively about what, how to

6:53

collapse some programs or combine some programs

6:55

and save as much money as they

6:57

can while still keeping as much of

7:00

the treatment and prevention services that existed

7:02

available. Thanks for that Andrew. Now new

7:04

research has found people who have the

7:07

common gynecological disorders, endometriosis and polycystic ovary

7:09

syndrome have an increased risk of cardiovascular

7:11

disease, but it's not clear that one

7:14

causes the other. So to find out

7:16

more about what might be going on,

7:18

I spoke to Dr. Georgia Colombo, who

7:21

is a specialty trainee in obstetrics and

7:23

gynecology at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

7:25

NHS Foundation Trust in London, and she

7:28

told me what they'd done. So when

7:30

we set out, we wanted to look

7:32

at all of the different normal ethnic

7:35

and ecological diseases, with the studies that

7:37

we found, we did end up mostly

7:39

looking at endometrist and PCOS, and we

7:42

looked at how these conditions affect your

7:44

risk of cardiovascular and cerebral vascular disease,

7:46

and our overall finding is that actually

7:49

these conditions do increase your risk of

7:51

cerebral and cardiovascular disease by 28%. And

7:53

this is a relative risk, so compared

7:56

to people that don't have the disease.

7:58

Obviously the overall background risk is lower

8:00

than that. But it was... a significant

8:03

finding on our statistical analysis. And when

8:05

we did various analyses that broke this

8:07

down into pieces, like looking specifically at

8:10

endometrosis or PCOS for this outcome, or

8:12

further breaking it down into schemic heart

8:14

disease or cerebrascoities itself, all of our

8:17

analyses did find that this association was

8:19

maintained. So it seems to be quite

8:21

a robust evidence that suggests that there

8:24

is this association. Why do you think

8:26

there could be this increased risk? if

8:28

you have these gynecological conditions, it sounds

8:31

like something so separate and so different.

8:33

Absolutely. So I think we need to

8:35

be careful about confounding factors, as we

8:38

mentioned earlier, with polycystic ovary syndrome. And

8:40

there is some overlap with metabolic syndrome,

8:42

so we need to be careful that

8:45

there's not some things related to these

8:47

diseases that can increase risk of cardiovascular

8:49

disease. However, when we look at the

8:52

actual... link biologically of how these conditions

8:54

may be related. The most likely suggestion,

8:56

the most likely hypothesis, is a chronic

8:59

low-grade inflammation state. This can be caused

9:01

by endometrosis and by polycystic ovary syndrome

9:03

and has been shown to be links

9:06

to developing atherosclerosis. So that's the build

9:08

of a plaque in the arteries that

9:10

leads to heart attacks and strokes. So

9:13

we think that that's probably the most

9:15

likely driver. but obviously the female hormone

9:17

environment may play a role as well

9:20

because we do see that women's incidents

9:22

of heart attacks and strokes does rise

9:24

in the perimenopausal period which is when

9:27

estrogen declines in the body and we

9:29

think that estrogen probably does have some

9:31

protective effects for heart attacks and strokes.

9:34

Therefore there is a role of female

9:36

hormones that we do need to investigate

9:38

further. Now in the study you're very

9:41

careful to be clear about the challenges

9:43

that you faced in in trying to

9:45

find really good quality data on this.

9:48

What were the limitations? Was it was

9:50

it hard to find really good studies?

9:52

So yes our main limitation was finding

9:55

studies that had a low risk of

9:57

bias. So we did actually, we were

9:59

quite happy to find a large number

10:02

of studies that looked at this association.

10:04

We ended up with actually 28 studies

10:06

included in our analysis, which had a

10:09

population of over 3 million individuals, something

10:11

that would be impossible to do with

10:13

a single study. So obviously we're quite

10:16

grateful to the other authors, upon which

10:18

our research is based. But within those

10:20

studies, we did find quite a high

10:23

risk of bias. And it's difficult with

10:25

an observation. study which by definition any

10:27

study on this topic will be because

10:30

we can't just assign people to have

10:32

a gynecological disease and other people want

10:34

to have it. So I think that

10:37

was the main thing we struggled with

10:39

was finding high quality data, although it's

10:41

quite encouraging that as we proceeded with

10:44

this research we did see some new

10:46

big studies published that were quite careful

10:48

to adjust their analysis for confounding factors

10:51

like high blood pressure and high BMI.

10:53

So high body mass index or high

10:55

weight. and to try to lower the

10:58

risk of bias as much as possible.

11:00

So that was quite encouraging. So what

11:02

needs to happen now to doctors who

11:05

are looking after patients with different gynecological

11:07

conditions need to be aware of this?

11:09

Or is it more a question of

11:12

people's family doctors being aware that there

11:14

could be an increased risk? I think

11:16

it's both. I think awareness of this

11:19

association needs to transverse not just the

11:21

whole population but also the entire global

11:23

health sphere. So we know obviously gynecologists

11:26

will need to be aware of it.

11:28

But as you say, primary care physicians

11:30

like GPs will need to be aware

11:33

of this as well and cardiologists as

11:35

well. How this translates into clinical practice

11:37

is mainly awareness. So having that thought

11:40

in the back of your head of,

11:42

oh, this patient does have endometrosis or

11:44

this patient does have polycystic ovary syndrome,

11:47

the risk might be slightly higher than

11:49

the classical tools that we do use

11:51

to estimate risk might tell us. And

11:54

just having that index of suspicion can

11:56

help us be sure to prevent and

11:58

put into place some lifestyle measures to

12:01

prevent heart attacks and strokes. And the

12:03

other factor with this as well is

12:05

that when patients do come in with

12:08

symptoms, sometimes they can... be different than

12:10

the typical presentation of a heart attack

12:12

or stroke. So having that greater index

12:15

of suspicion that tells you that this

12:17

patient is slightly higher risk of these

12:19

conditions might make you take that further

12:22

than you would for a non-typical presentation.

12:24

And what does it mean for patients

12:26

themselves? Because of course these conditions are

12:29

very common and they're bad enough in

12:31

themselves without then being told, oh and

12:33

also you may have an increased risk

12:36

of things like heart attack and stroke.

12:38

You know that's difficult news in a

12:40

way. course yeah it's quite difficult I

12:43

think the main thing that we would

12:45

advocate for patients to do would be

12:47

to ensure that they are living a

12:50

healthy lifestyle so you know minimizing the

12:52

modifiable cardiac risk factors to are the

12:54

classic things that we always talk about

12:57

so maintaining a healthy weight and exercising

12:59

not smoking these are all things that

13:01

can generally reduce the risk of cardiovascular

13:04

disease and unfortunately endometrosis and PCOS we

13:06

that seems to be associated with cardiovascular

13:08

disease and that's a non-modifiable risk factor.

13:11

We can't change that. But anything else

13:13

that can be changed should be changed

13:15

so that overall the risk is low.

13:18

Dr. Georgia Colombo. You're listening to Health

13:20

Check from the BBC. I'm Claudia Hamander.

13:22

My guest today is global health journalist

13:25

Andrew Green, who joins me from Uganda.

13:27

Now we talked to you last year,

13:29

Andrew, about new evidence that a twice-yearly

13:32

injection could prevent people from contracting HIV.

13:34

And now there's been the first trial

13:36

of a version of that drug, Lena

13:39

Capovir, that would be used just once

13:41

a year. Now this is what's known

13:43

as a phase one study. What does

13:46

that mean? Right. So this is a

13:48

small trial that was primarily geared just

13:50

to determine the safety of the medicine.

13:53

So in this case there were 40

13:55

people enrolled and they were split into

13:57

two groups receiving different concentrations of the

14:00

medicine. a cap of your... And the

14:02

results have just been published in the

14:04

journal The Lancet and of course as

14:07

you say the aim wasn't to see

14:09

how well it works but to see

14:11

whether it was safe but did they

14:14

get any indication of whether it would

14:16

be as effective as having injections twice

14:18

a year? Yes I think that... They

14:21

must, the researchers and Gilead, the pharmaceutical

14:23

behind Linicapavir must be extremely excited because

14:25

it seemed like it's very effective. They

14:28

found effective concentrations of Linicapavir in participants

14:30

at a rate of 95% and they

14:32

actually found these concentrations were higher than

14:35

the earlier trials of the six-month doses

14:37

that you referenced. I think the message

14:39

here has to be like, let's keep

14:42

going, we need bigger trials and more

14:44

data to see just how effective this

14:46

can be. But would any rollouts of

14:49

injectables be affected by the cuts that

14:51

we were just discussing? I think that's

14:53

the major concern. So we're supposed to

14:56

be seeing rollouts of the six-month dose

14:58

of Linda Capovir across much of substandard

15:00

Africa and elsewhere, but that was under

15:03

the auspices of PEPFAR, which is the

15:05

US-funded US-funded emergency AIDS intervention intervention. and

15:07

it's not at all clear that that's

15:10

going to continue. The Global Fund, which

15:12

was involved in this as well, has

15:14

said that they are going to, but

15:17

it will be interesting to see if

15:19

the Global Fund has the resources to

15:21

continue that initiative without the support of

15:24

the United States government. Will we keep

15:26

an eye on what happens with the

15:28

rollouts in the future? Thank you very

15:31

much for that, Andrew. Next on Health

15:33

Check, we have an award winner who

15:35

is pioneering mental health services for indigenous

15:38

people in Guatemala who have conditions such

15:40

as schizophrenia schizophrenia. Alejandra Pani Agua Avila

15:42

is one of the winners of the

15:45

2025 OWSD-Lsevee Foundation Award for Transformative Health.

15:47

She's a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatric epidemiology

15:49

at Columbia University and I was intrigued

15:52

to hear more about her groundbreaking work

15:54

in Guatemala so I asked her how

15:56

she got into it. Yeah so since

15:59

I was a really young child.

16:01

I was always interested

16:03

in science, in human

16:06

biology, in understanding life,

16:08

and later as a high school student

16:10

that was the first time that

16:13

I realized that there was a

16:15

large proportion of

16:17

the Guatemalan population

16:19

that actually did not have

16:21

access to health care, meaning

16:23

that when someone in their

16:25

families were sick, they were

16:27

not able to find help.

16:29

And that really concerned me and

16:32

since then I became really fascinated

16:34

with this idea of finding solutions

16:36

to make sure that most of

16:38

the population and most of

16:41

the people in Guatemala has

16:43

access to health care and

16:45

access to health services when

16:47

they need it. And so

16:49

in rural and indigenous communities

16:51

in Guatemala, if somebody has

16:53

something that say would be

16:55

diagnosed as schizophrenia or bipolar

16:57

disorder before your project, what

16:59

would have happened to them? Yes,

17:01

so what we started to realize is

17:03

that most people that have mental

17:06

health problems and particularly those who

17:08

live in rural areas and identify

17:10

as my indigenous do not have

17:13

any access to health care. What

17:15

the Malay is a country that's

17:17

now considered an upper middle income

17:20

country, but that doesn't really show

17:22

the huge disparities that we have

17:24

in terms of income. And so

17:26

you know people who are indigenous

17:29

and live in rural areas basically

17:31

have no mental health services that

17:33

are helping them. And so when

17:35

a family has someone who lives

17:38

with a serious mental illness like

17:40

schizophrenia, as you were mentioning, or

17:42

bipolar disorder, or even, you know,

17:44

severe depression, they basically have two

17:47

options, right? One option is to

17:49

take the relatives to the only

17:51

public psychiatric hospital that's available

17:53

in the country, and that usually

17:55

takes, you know, up to a

17:57

day to get there from the...

18:00

areas. And even when people are

18:02

able to get there, they usually

18:04

do not receive, you know, high

18:07

quality care and often are receive

18:09

care that that is really based

18:11

in what we call institutionalization. And

18:14

so that's one of the options.

18:16

And then the other option is

18:18

to really try to take care

18:21

of them with their resources that

18:23

are available in the community. And

18:26

there are some resources, right? But

18:28

it's really hard. for people with

18:30

schizophrenia to actually live up to

18:33

their potential when there is very

18:35

limited mental health services. And so

18:37

what ends up happening, and we've

18:40

had a lot of conversations with

18:42

families from these areas, is that

18:44

a lot of the times they

18:47

end up having to decide between

18:49

taking care of the person with

18:51

schizophrenia or taking care of the

18:54

rest of the family, right? And

18:56

this is almost like a survival.

18:58

decision that they have to make.

19:01

And so a lot of them

19:03

we found that a lot of

19:05

the people with schizophrenia end up

19:08

being locked up in rooms and

19:10

we found people that have been

19:13

in rooms for 15, 20 years

19:15

without any type of treatment, any

19:17

type of medication and a type

19:20

of therapy. It's a really hard

19:22

situation and this is what's happening

19:24

really in most of the country

19:27

and particularly in rural settings and

19:29

among my indigenous populations. So you

19:31

have piloted the first scheme of

19:34

its kind in Latin America, which

19:36

is for people with schizophrenia. And

19:38

so what happens with this scheme?

19:41

So what we usually do is

19:43

that we work with community members,

19:45

meaning people that identify as my

19:48

indigenous people who have schizophrenia, their

19:50

caregivers, providers, etc. And together with

19:52

them and with researchers from these

19:55

communities, we try to identify their

19:57

problems from their own perspectives. We

19:59

also try to identify you know,

20:02

the resources that are in place

20:04

in the communities. And so in

20:07

these communities, there's Maya healers, there's

20:09

Maya midwives, and there's different practices

20:11

that have been in place for

20:14

centuries. So we always take all

20:16

of that into account. And so

20:18

what we identified last year is

20:21

that families are really important, right?

20:23

And caregivers are the main decision

20:25

makers. family caregivers, I mean, they

20:28

are the main decision makers, they

20:30

are the ones to take care

20:32

of their relatives with schizophrenia. So

20:35

what we have done is that

20:37

we have combined that local knowledge,

20:39

those local priorities with scientific evidence,

20:42

right? And so there's a lot

20:44

of scientific evidence coming mainly from

20:46

high income countries that has shown

20:49

that There is a type of

20:51

intervention that's called family-based psycho-education intervention

20:54

that basically teaches relatives how to

20:56

take care of their relatives with

20:58

schizophrenia. And so what we're doing

21:01

is we're taking that scientific evidence

21:03

and we're combining it with local

21:05

knowledge. And we are co-creating a

21:08

new version, an adapted version of

21:10

this psycho education intervention that we're

21:12

hoping to pilot in the second

21:15

part of this year. We have

21:17

done some. preliminary piloting with some

21:19

groups of families and relatives, caregivers,

21:22

people with schizophrenia and also people

21:24

with schizophrenia. And we've had really

21:26

good preliminary results. People are excited

21:29

about the program. They want to

21:31

participate. So we are really hoping

21:33

to pilot this together with people

21:36

from the community and also in

21:38

partnership with the Ministry of Health

21:41

in Guatemala. that has also been

21:43

really supportive of this work that

21:45

we're doing. Why is the work

21:48

so challenging that you're doing? It

21:50

is challenging first because there is...

21:52

Mental health is usually not seen

21:55

as a priority, right? In countries

21:57

like what Nala were, there are

21:59

so many other health problems like

22:02

maternal mortality, child mortality, mental health

22:04

is usually seen as a master

22:06

thought, right? And there's also a

22:09

lot of stigma, and so this

22:11

stigma usually translates into mental health

22:13

not being as prioritized as other

22:16

problems. And so those are some

22:18

of the main problems. Another problem

22:20

is that there's really limited funding

22:23

for mental health and for mental

22:25

health research. And so, you know,

22:28

it's hard to find partners, it's

22:30

hard to find a team, it's

22:32

hard to create a team. So

22:35

it's kind of like you're trying

22:37

to address all the factors within

22:39

the whole system and of course

22:42

that's not possible. But you need

22:44

to make sure that... you know,

22:46

people within the public health system

22:49

recognize that this is a priority.

22:51

And now you've won this award.

22:53

What kind of difference might that

22:56

make to your work going forward?

22:58

Definitely. I think it's really important

23:00

to get this type of awards,

23:03

especially because the work that we're

23:05

doing is really challenging. And it's

23:07

really one of the first times

23:10

that we're actually trying to find

23:12

systemic and community-based and potentially sustainable

23:15

and effective solutions for the mental

23:17

health problems that a lot of

23:19

the families in Guatemala face. And

23:22

so this award not only recognizes

23:24

the work that I've done, it

23:26

recognizes the work that our team

23:29

of my indigenous researchers, of multidisciplinary

23:31

researchers has done, our partnerships with

23:33

the public health system. It recognizes

23:36

all that work that we have

23:38

been doing. and it shows that

23:40

mental health is actually a priority

23:43

and it is beginning to be

23:45

seen as a public health priority

23:47

that needs to be approached urgently.

23:50

Alihandra Pani Agua Avila. Now before

23:52

we go Andrew, I want to

23:54

talk to you about fungi. Now

23:57

there's a new discovery published in

23:59

Nature this week, an antifungal molecule

24:02

produced by bacteria that could be

24:04

used to fight fungi which have

24:06

become resistant to drugs. Now when

24:09

we hear about the problem of

24:11

antimicrobial resistance, antibiotics tend to be

24:13

the first thing that comes to

24:16

mind, but is something similar going

24:18

on with fungal diseases too? Yes,

24:20

that does seem to be the

24:23

case. You know, fungal infections kill

24:25

about 2 million people annually, but

24:27

the rise of drug-resistant fungi has

24:30

been a big concern for the

24:32

World Health Organization and other agencies,

24:34

especially because it seems to be

24:37

quite difficult to develop antifungals. And

24:39

so, as the fungi become resistant,

24:41

you know, we're becoming more susceptible

24:44

to these kinds of dangerous infections.

24:46

So what sorts of fungal diseases

24:49

are we looking at? People are

24:51

probably most familiar with fungal diseases

24:53

like athlete's foot or something like

24:56

ringworm, but there are far more

24:58

dangerous fungal infections, particularly for people

25:00

who have reduced immune systems. So

25:03

things like oral thrush, yeast infections,

25:05

a big concern of the WHO

25:07

is cryptococcus, which is primarily a

25:10

lung infection. But as I said,

25:12

you know, there's two million people

25:14

annually who are killed by these

25:17

infections, so there's a huge range.

25:19

So what is this new molecule

25:21

that's been discovered? It's a molecule

25:24

called mandamiasin, which was found, as

25:26

you said, a strain of bacteria.

25:28

And what's really interesting about it,

25:31

is that so normal antifungals kind

25:33

of target one molecule in a

25:36

fungi. But mandamiasin targets a range

25:38

of molecules. that are along the

25:40

fungal cell membrane. So it provides

25:43

this kind of group of targets,

25:45

and that makes it more robust,

25:47

and also less susceptible to mutations

25:50

in the fungi. And so there's

25:52

a lot of hope that it

25:54

might be a long-term solution, at

25:57

least to addressing some of these

25:59

fungal. infections. So how was

26:01

this molecule discovered? Yeah, this is

26:03

also the really fascinating thing about

26:05

this molecule. So, you know, one of the

26:08

things that the researchers pointed to is that

26:10

the bacteria that kind of may host

26:12

these antifungals is often discovered by trekking

26:14

to remote settings, remote islands, underwater to

26:17

try to find these bacteria and that

26:19

it's quite rare. But in this case,

26:21

the researchers took a different approach and

26:24

they combed through existing genome libraries and

26:26

looking for viable candidates. And you know,

26:28

obviously this took a long time and

26:31

a lot of effort, but it does

26:33

point to another opportunity to find. viable

26:35

anti-fungals in the future. Well, we'll hope

26:38

that this goes further and that this

26:40

one's going to work. Thank you so

26:42

much Andrew Green for joining me today

26:45

and thanks to the producers Margaret, Cesar

26:47

Hawkins and Katie Thompson and our studio

26:49

engineers today, Searle Whitney and Sarah Hockley.

26:51

Now do email us if there's a

26:54

health topic you'd like us to explore.

26:56

The email is Health Check at BBC.co.

26:58

UK or you can find me on

27:01

all sorts of social media at Claudia

27:03

at Claudia. next week. Bye for now.

27:05

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