Fungus labelled ‘urgent threat’ by CDC spreading ‘rapidly’ across US hospitals
Candida auris (C. auris), a deadly drug-resistant fungus, is rapidly spreading in U.S. hospitals and nursing homes.
Candida auris (C. auris), a deadly drug-resistant fungus is spreading rapidly in hospitals and nursing homes across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a warning in 2023 for the increasing rate at which C. auris, a type of yeast first identified in the United States in 2016, has continued to spread over the years.
The agency notes that the deadly fungus is often resistant to antifungal medications, which can lead to resistant infections that are often “difficult and sometimes impossible to treat.” In 2016, 52 infections were reported across the country. The number of cases has since doubled annually, with 4,514 reported infections in 2023.
What is C. auris? How dangerous is it?
Candida auris, or C. auris, is a kind of yeast that can cause severe illness, according to the CDC. It spreads easily in healthcare facilities and can cause a variety of infections, ranging from superficial skin infections to severe, life-threatening bloodstream infections.
CDC has previously labelled C. auris as “an urgent AR [antimicrobial resistance] threat,” in a statement. The agency estimated that “30–60% of people with C. auris infections have died. However, many of these people had other serious illnesses that also increased their risk of death.”
CDC epidemiologist Dr. Meghan Lyman said in a statement issued in 2023: “The rapid rise and geographic spread of cases is concerning and emphasizes the need for continued surveillance, expanded lab capacity, quicker diagnostic tests, and adherence to proven infection prevention and control.”
A recent study published last week on the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) website notes, “The volumes of clinical cultures with C. auris have rapidly increased, accompanied by an expansion in the sources of infection.”
Melissa Nolan, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina, told Nexstar, “If you get infected with this pathogen that’s resistant to any treatment, there’s no treatment we can give you to help combat it. You’re all on your own.”
“It’s really good at just being, generally speaking, in the environment. So if you have it on a patient’s bed for example, on the railing, and you go to wipe everything down, if in whatever way maybe a couple of pathogens didn’t get cleared, then they’re becoming resistant. And so over time, they can kind of grow and populate in that hospital environment,” Nolan said of C. auris.
