Fungal STD Statistics in US 2026 | Key Facts

Outbreak of Sexually Transmitted Fungal Infection in US 2026

Something alarming and genuinely new is happening in the landscape of sexually transmitted infections in the United States in 2026: a fungus is now spreading through sexual contact, and health officials across the country are sounding the alarm. Trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII (TMVII) — the only known fungal-based sexually transmitted disease — has gone from a handful of scattered cases in large US cities to a full-blown cluster outbreak concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) issued a formal Health Advisory on February 11, 2026, declaring the state’s outbreak the “largest known outbreak” of TMVII in the United States to date, with more than 30 confirmed or suspected cases reported since July 2025. This is not a theoretical risk or a distant international concern — it is happening right now across American cities, and the CDC updated its official guidance on emerging ringworm types as recently as February 6, 2026.

What makes this outbreak so significant is the sheer novelty of the pathogen in a sexual transmission context. Most Americans associate ringworm with locker rooms and pets — not with sexual contact or STI clinics. But TMVII is fundamentally different from common ringworm. It causes severe, persistent, painful rashes on the genitals, buttocks, perianal area, and face — areas directly involved in sexual contact. It frequently resists topical treatment and may require oral antifungal medication for up to three months before lesions fully resolve. Worse still, because TMVII is not a nationally notifiable condition in the United States, the true number of cases across the country remains deeply uncertain. Experts widely believe reported numbers represent only a fraction of actual infections — a reality that makes understanding the available fungal STD statistics in the US 2026 more critical than ever.

Interesting Facts: Fungal STD (TMVII) in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); CDC Emerging Types of Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 31, No. 10 (October 2025).

The table above lays out just how quickly and decisively the TMVII fungal STD situation in the United States in 2026 has escalated. The jump from one isolated imported case in New York City in June 2024 to a multi-dozen cluster in Minnesota by early 2026 reflects a pattern of localized sexual networks driving transmission — exactly the same dynamic that fueled TMVII’s spread among MSM communities in France beginning in 2021. What is especially striking is the clinician awareness data: the May 2025 CDC survey of US physicians found that fewer than 1 in 20 had seen a case suspicious for TMVII in the prior year, and well under half reported knowing how to treat it effectively. This awareness gap is not just an academic concern — it is a direct public health liability that allows misdiagnosed patients to remain infectious for weeks or months.

Perhaps most consequential is the non-notifiable status of TMVII across the United States. The Minnesota cluster was identified only because a small number of alert clinicians proactively contacted the health department and requested confirmatory genotyping. Without that clinical vigilance, those 40+ cases would have been misclassified as eczema or psoriasis and the outbreak would have continued growing silently. The CDC itself has acknowledged that most jurisdictions lack adequate fungal STD surveillance data precisely because TMVII reporting is not mandated at the federal level. The 13 confirmed and 27 suspected cases in Minnesota almost certainly represent a significant undercount of the true statewide burden — let alone the national picture.

TMVII Fungal STD Case Timeline in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC MMWR, Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 31, No. 10 (October 2025); CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026).

The timeline tells a story of rapid escalation compressed into less than two years. The fact that the first US case was identified in June 2024 and the largest known US outbreak was declared in February 2026 in an entirely different state shows how efficiently TMVII travels through sexual networks. The NYC cases involved men aged 30–39 with sexual contact histories spanning California and multiple European countries — a reminder that in an era of internationally connected sexual communities, a pathogen introduced via France or Southeast Asia does not stay contained by geography. The progression from 5 initial NYC cases to a 40+ case Minnesota cluster within roughly 18 months is a warning signal that public health officials cannot afford to dismiss.

The timeline also exposes a troubling lag between emergence and institutional response. The CDC’s updated clinician guidance did not arrive until February 6, 2026 — more than 19 months after the first US case was confirmed. During that window, the May 2025 CDC survey showed that well over half of US doctors had never heard of TMVII. Each missed or misdiagnosed case during that period was a lost opportunity for partner notification and outbreak containment. The MDH’s decision to activate enhanced contact-tracing surveillance in response to patients naming contacts is precisely the model that public health officials across the country need to replicate — and urgently.

TMVII Fungal STD NYC Patient Profile Data in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024) — Notes from the Field: Trichophyton mentagrophytes Genotype VII — New York City, April–July 2024.

The New York City case data from the CDC’s October 2024 MMWR is the most granular fungal STD clinical data currently available for the United States in 2026, and it contains several critical lessons. The experience of Patient A — who spent three full weeks on topical treatments before being escalated to oral terbinafine — shows exactly how the misdiagnosis trap springs shut on TMVII patients. Topical clotrimazole and topical terbinafine are the standard first-line OTC treatments for ordinary ringworm, and they are entirely appropriate for common strains. But TMVII routinely defeats topical therapy, particularly when rashes involve hair follicles or have spread across large areas. The fact that Patient A showed zero improvement over three weeks on topicals — and was only correctly treated after TMVII was confirmed — represents a period during which that patient could have unknowingly transmitted the infection to additional sexual partners.

The antifungal susceptibility data is one of the most reassuring elements of the NYC case profiles. Every patient isolate showed a terbinafine MIC of 0.0039 mg/mL and an itraconazole MIC below 0.03 mg/mL — both figures indicating clear drug susceptibility with no resistance signals. This stands in sharp contrast to T. indotineae, where terbinafine MICs can reach ≥2 mg/mL or higher — a resistance level that renders the drug essentially useless. The fact that Patients B and C had no known epidemiological link to the other two NYC patients is another sobering data point: it means TMVII was not arriving in New York City from a single chain of transmission, but through multiple separate introduction events from different international or domestic sexual contact networks simultaneously.

TMVII Fungal STD Symptoms, Diagnosis & Misdiagnosis Risk in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC Clinical Overview of Ringworm (February 9, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Emerging Types of Ringworm (February 6, 2026); Newsweek (February 14, 2026).

The clinical picture of TMVII fungal STD makes it uniquely dangerous from a public health standpoint — not because it is uniformly life-threatening, but because it is so reliably easy to miss. The presenting symptom of round, scaly, red, annular lesions on the genitals, buttocks, and thighs is nearly identical to common eczema or psoriasis. In the NYC cluster documented in the CDC’s MMWR, even an attentive clinician initially managed Patient A with three weeks of topical agents before the correct diagnosis was established. That delay meant weeks of continued potential transmission to sexual partners. Add to this the inherent insensitivity of fungal cultures — even when collected correctly, they frequently return false negatives — and the result is a diagnostic bottleneck that has almost certainly allowed TMVII to circulate undetected across multiple US cities simultaneously.

The severity dimension also deserves emphasis. TMVII lesions can become inflamed, painful, and persistent, and in people who are immunocompromised — HIV-positive individuals with inconsistent antiretroviral therapy, for instance, like Patient B in the NYC cluster — the infection can spread to atypical sites including the face. The MDH advisory explicitly warned that some rashes lead to scarring or worsening infections if left untreated. CDC’s February 2026 clinical guidance reinforces this, noting that sexually transmitted ringworm causes more severe infections than common ringworm and affects anatomical areas directly involved in sexual contact. Given that TMVII requires oral medication for 6 to 12 weeks compared to a few days for ordinary ringworm, early recognition is not a minor quality-of-care distinction — it is a direct determinant of how far this outbreak will spread through 2026.

TMVII Fungal STD Treatment Statistics in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); Newsweek (February 14, 2026); CDC Treatment of Ringworm (February 9, 2026); CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026).

One of the most important clinical points in the 2026 fungal STD treatment data is that TMVII, unlike the other two emerging ringworm strains now generating US public health concern — T. indotineae and terbinafine-resistant T. rubrum — is not antimicrobial-resistant. The NYC isolate MIC data confirms this decisively: a terbinafine MIC of 0.0039 mg/mL means the drug is working at concentrations far below what resistance would require. This is genuinely good news, as oral terbinafine remains effective, accessible, and comparatively well-tolerated. However, effectiveness is entirely contingent on correct use: the full course of 6 to 12 weeks, continued until two weeks past complete lesion resolution. Patients who stop taking terbinafine as soon as symptoms improve are not finishing the job — they risk relapse and, over repeated subtherapeutic exposures, potentially accelerating resistance development in future strains.

The absolute contraindication of corticosteroid creams — routinely prescribed by generalists and dermatologists alike for eczema and psoriasis, which TMVII closely mimics — is another critical gap between current prescribing practice and what TMVII requires. A patient who presents with TMVII genital rashes and receives a topical steroid prescription will not only fail to improve; the steroid suppresses the local immune response and actively allows the fungus to expand. The CDC’s February 2026 guidance makes this unambiguous: no steroid-containing topicals for any ringworm rash, and especially not for presentations consistent with an emerging sexually transmitted strain. The MDH advisory echoes this instruction verbatim. Until this message reaches every clinician in the country, mismanaged TMVII patients will continue to seed their sexual networks with a treatable but undiagnosed infection.

High-Risk Groups for Fungal STD (TMVII) in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Emerging Types of Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CIDRAP (February 12, 2026).

The high-risk group data for fungal STD in the US 2026 paints a clear epidemiological picture: TMVII currently travels predominantly within MSM sexual networks, but the infection is not biologically exclusive to any population. The MDH advisory flags three groups at elevated risk — MSM, users of anonymous dating apps, and persons with prior STI history — all of which reflect network-based transmission dynamics where a single infectious individual can seed cases across a wide web of contacts. The NYC 2024 cluster illustrates this precisely: Patients A and D had direct sexual contact with each other, but Patients B and C had no known epidemiological link to any confirmed TMVII case — indicating multiple independent introduction events into New York City’s MSM community simultaneously, not a single traceable chain of transmission.

The role of international travel is particularly relevant as a forward-looking warning for 2026 and beyond. The American index case in June 2024 was a man who had traveled to multiple European countries and California, engaging in sexual contact with men throughout. TMVII was already well-established among French MSM communities by 2021 and linked to Southeast Asian sex tourism before that. The global mobility of modern sexual networks means that any TMVII surge in Europe or Asia has direct implications for the United States within months, not years. And with the fungus now demonstrated to be capable of establishing local transmission chains in US cities — first New York, now Minneapolis — the window for containing it to a narrowly defined risk group may already be closing as cases accumulate silently in cities without adequate surveillance infrastructure.

TMVII Fungal STD Transmission Routes in the US 2026

Data Sources: MDH Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Emerging Types of Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); CIDRAP (February 12, 2026).

The transmission profile of TMVII fungal STD in the US 2026 is simultaneously what makes it a sexually transmitted infection and what makes it more complex to contain than classical bacterial STIs like gonorrhea or chlamydia. Unlike those pathogens, which require exchange of infected secretions, TMVII transmits via direct skin-to-skin contact — meaning penetrative sex is not required for transmission, and sexual acts involving genital-to-genital, genital-to-anal, or skin-to-skin contact with any infected area can pass the fungus. This broader transmission window means that even partners who report low-risk sexual practices may still acquire TMVII if an infected area contacts their skin. The MDH advisory is appropriately explicit about this: patients must avoid all skin-to-skin contact, not just penetrative sex, until fully healed — a behavioral ask that is both broader and more difficult to comply with than the abstinence recommendations given for many classical STIs.

The environmental persistence of TMVII spores on fabrics and surfaces adds a non-sexual transmission risk that requires specific hygiene responses beyond partner notification. The MDH February 2026 advisory specifically instructs patients to launder all potentially contaminated items on high heat to kill fungal spores, cover rashes with bandages or clothing when in shared spaces, and disinfect shared surfaces with appropriate agents. This is a level of environmental precaution that goes beyond what most STI control programs typically require. In a household with a confirmed or suspected TMVII case, every towel, bedsheet, and razor becomes a potential fomite. Public health messaging in 2026 needs to communicate not just sexual risk but household hygiene protocols clearly and accessibly to reach all affected populations.

TMVII Fungal STD Prevention & Public Health Response in the US 2026

Data Sources: Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 31, No. 10 (October 2025).

The public health response to the 2026 fungal STD outbreak in the US has been a patchwork of decisive state-level action and overdue federal guidance. Minnesota’s MDH deserves credit for moving quickly once the cluster was identified: the February 11, 2026 Health Advisory was specific, actionable, and clearly directed at both clinicians and patients. The state’s decision to activate an enhanced surveillance system in response to patients naming contacts was precisely the right move, and it produced exactly the kind of real-time cluster data that public health needs to move effectively. But even MDH acknowledged a hard underlying truth: TMVII is not a nationally notifiable condition, meaning that every other US state has no systematic way of even knowing how many cases are occurring within their borders at this moment.

The CDC’s provision of a dedicated fungal consultation phone line (404-639-5168) and email address (fungalconsult@cdc.gov) is a practical and underappreciated resource that clinicians across the country can and should use when confronted with an unusual ringworm presentation. But awareness of that resource depends on clinicians knowing enough about TMVII to seek help in the first place — and the May 2025 survey found that most do not. The February 2026 clinician guidance is a meaningful step forward, but published guidance alone does not build laboratory infrastructure, train clinicians, or create reporting systems. As TMVII cases continue to be confirmed from large US cities and the Minnesota cluster grows, the pressure will build for federal authorities to designate TMVII as a nationally notifiable condition — a step that would finally allow the systematic data collection that is currently impossible.

TMVII Fungal STD Clinician Awareness & Surveillance Gap in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 31, No. 10 (October 2025); CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CDC Emerging Types of Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CIDRAP (February 12, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024).

The clinician awareness and surveillance gap data may be the most alarming single element of the entire fungal STD in the US 2026 picture, because it means the United States is currently flying entirely blind when it comes to understanding the true national burden of TMVII. When 44% of US clinicians had never heard of TMVII as recently as May 2025, and only 4% had seen a suspicious case in the prior year, the logical inference is not that TMVII was rare — it is that cases were occurring but being diagnosed as eczema, psoriasis, or ordinary jock itch and sent home with ineffective or actively harmful treatments. The Minnesota cluster was discovered because several patients happened to see clinicians who made the correct clinical leap and contacted the health department. In jurisdictions without that clinical vigilance, TMVII cases almost certainly go uncounted.

The laboratory capacity gap compounds this further. Even if every US clinician in 2026 knew to suspect TMVII, most would have no pathway to confirmatory genotyping. Most US hospital and clinic labs can confirm that a patient has tinea (fungal skin infection) via KOH microscopy, and can grow the fungus in culture, but they cannot perform the ITS-region DNA sequencing needed to distinguish TMVII from ordinary T. mentagrophytes or T. interdigitale. Only select reference laboratories — prominently the NY Wadsworth Center and the MDH Public Health Laboratory — currently have that capacity. This creates a system in which TMVII can only be identified with certainty if a clinician suspects it specifically enough to request confirmatory testing at a specialized lab, which requires both clinical suspicion and a referral pathway that most healthcare settings have not established. Building that infrastructure is one of the most pressing fungal STD public health needs in the US in 2026.

US Broad STI Context for Fungal STD Statistics in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC STI Surveillance 2024 (Provisional), released September 24, 2025; CDC NCHHSTP Director’s Letter on 2024 STI Data (September 24, 2025); Minnesota Department of Health Health Advisory (February 11, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024).

Placing TMVII fungal STD statistics within the broader US STI landscape in 2026 reveals a landscape of genuine contradiction. At the exact moment that the three traditional nationally notifiable STIs — chlamydia, gonorrhea, and primary/secondary syphilis — all recorded declining case counts in 2024 for the first time in years, a completely new category of sexually transmitted pathogen entered the picture without any systematic reporting infrastructure in place to track it. The CDC’s provisional 2024 STI data, released September 24, 2025, confirmed that combined chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis cases fell 9% from 2023 — a genuinely encouraging milestone driven by years of targeted prevention investment. Yet that hard-won progress now coexists with the emergence of a sexually transmitted fungal infection that cannot be systematically detected, is not required to be reported, and was unknown to more than 4 in 10 US physicians as recently as May 2025.

The congenital syphilis figure — nearly 4,000 cases in 2024, representing a 12th consecutive year of increase and a near 700% rise over a decade — is a sobering reminder that progress on some STIs can coexist with catastrophic failure on others. Congenital syphilis and TMVII are superficially very different problems, but they share a common upstream driver: failure of the healthcare system to diagnose, treat, and interrupt transmission in time. TMVII, unlike congenital syphilis, has the advantage of being early in its US establishment — which means the window for aggressive intervention, enhanced surveillance, and clinician education is still open. The question in 2026 is whether public health authorities will act while that window remains open, or whether TMVII will follow the congenital syphilis trajectory of years of quiet growth before the alarm is finally sounded at scale.

Comparison of Emerging Fungal & STD Threats in the US 2026

Data Sources: CDC Clinician Brief: Emerging Ringworm (February 6, 2026); CDC MMWR Vol. 73, No. 43 (October 31, 2024); CDC STI Surveillance 2024 Provisional (September 24, 2025); NCHHSTP Director’s Letter (September 24, 2025); CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 30, No. 4 (April 2024).

The comparative landscape of fungal and sexually transmitted disease threats in the US in 2026 reveals something that public health textbooks rarely account for: the category of “sexually transmitted infection” is not static. For decades, the STI landscape was dominated by bacteria (chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis) and viruses (HIV, HSV, HPV). Fungi were not part of that conversation at all. The emergence of TMVII as a legitimate sexually transmitted pathogen with documented network-driven outbreaks is a genuine category expansion — one that the US surveillance, reporting, and clinical training infrastructure was simply not built to handle. The fact that T. indotineae has now been detected in at least 11 US states without becoming a nationally notifiable condition underscores how far behind the regulatory and surveillance system is relative to what is actually circulating in the population.

The contrast between TMVII and T. indotineae is worth dwelling on, because they represent two very different worst-case scenarios. TMVII is sexually transmitted and network-driven — which means it has the potential for exponential spread through MSM communities, as HIV and gonorrhea demonstrated in decades past, but it responds to existing medications when correctly diagnosed. T. indotineae is antimicrobial-resistant and travel-linked — which means it has the potential to introduce untreatable fungal skin infections into the US healthcare system, but its spread is at least partially constrained by travel patterns rather than sexual networks. TMVII’s treatability is its saving grace in 2026, and it creates a genuine opportunity for outbreak control — but only if the clinical and public health systems can identify, report, and respond to cases with the speed and coordination that the current US fungal STD surveillance infrastructure is not yet equipped to deliver.

Disclaimer: This research report is compiled from publicly available sources. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, no representation or warranty, express or implied, is given as to the completeness or reliability of the information. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions, losses, or damages of any kind arising from the use of this report.

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