An international team of scientists, led by researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Exeter, have found that levels of resistance to fungal infection treatments are rising, BBC News reported on Friday.

The findings, which have been published in Science, reveal a huge global increase in resistance to antifungal drugs over the last 30-40 years and that fungal infections have some of the highest mortality rates of infectious diseases.

The researchers are calling for new treatments, saying they are urgently needed.

Due to their weakened immune systems, transplant patients, those in intensive care, and cancer patients are most at risk.

The researchers also discovered a rise of new multidrug-resistant fungi, such as Candida auris – responsible for increasing rates of invasive fungal infections in hospitals across the globe. It was found to be resistant to all antifungal drugs and "presents a threat to intensive-care units" as it can survive standard decontamination efforts.