Azole fungal resistance is becoming a major public health problem in medicine in recent years. However, it was known in agriculture since several decades; the extensive use of these compounds results in contamination of air, plants, and soil. The increasing frequency of life-threatening fungal infections and the increase of prophylactical use of azoles in high-risk patients, taken together with the evolutionary biology evidence that drug selection pressure is an important factor for the emergence and spread of drug resistance, can result in a dramatic scenario. This study reviews the azole use in agricultural and medical contexts and discusses the hypothetical link between its extensive use and the emergence of azole resistance among human fungal pathogens.
Keywords: Aspergillus fumigatus; Candida; Portuguese agriculture; antifungals; azoles; fungal resistance.