[Histoplasmosis and other imported mycoses in 1989]

The most common systemic mycoses imported into France are the histoplasmosis caused by H. capsulatum, which comes from Black Africa and from the French overseas departments and territories (Guyane, Martinique, Guadeloupe, New Caledonia), and the histoplasmosis caused by the larger H. duboisii, which is exclusively Central African. In recent years, histoplasmosis has become an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised patients, particularly those with AIDS. Blastomycosis, imported from North America as well as from North Africa and Central Africa, and paracoccidioidomycosis, imported from Latin America, are pulmonary mycoses with cutaneous manifestations on the face and extremities and with various deep localizations which often follow a chronic course. Coccidioidomycosis, strictly limited to the desertic regions in the western part of the American continent, is also a pulmonary mycosis with multiple granulomas in the skin, bones, lymph nodes and meninges. Penicilliosis caused by Penicillium marneffei is a mycosis from South-East Asia which has recently been observed in European AIDS patients who had travelled in that part of the world.