The group intends to follow-up on the publication of the new Guidelines for recreational water quality from WHO that provides a guiding value for fungal presence in beach sand (developed by the original Mycosands study) and generate more data to maintain fungi in the roadmap of beach sand safety standards.
Most laboratories provided their analytical results, which are currently being processed. We succeeded in integrating fungal counts as a parameter in the new Blue Flag criterion “Sand quality”, in Portugal, the model for other countries and member states of that organization on this new criterion. It should be noted that in Israel 56 beaches received the Blue Flag report. We published in Medical Mycology an article entitled “Knowledge and regulation on fungal contamination of sand and water: Progress report and perspectives” which was finally published in January 2024.
A session on fungi in sand quality standards in the upcoming ISHAM meeting in Iguaçu and the publication of the joint results of the group, as well as partial local data publications.
2021: 5000 CHF
2022: 5000 CHF