[News] What is the fungus Candida auris, which has caused alarms by becoming an "urgent threat" in the United States

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Patients who have been hospitalized in a health care facility for a long time are at higher risk of infection.

Potentially deadly, the fungus that usually kills in as little as 90 days is already present in more than half the US states.

Infections grew dramatically in the US between 2019 and 2021, according to a study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal. The researchers warn of the increase in cases that are resistant to echinocandins, the main drug used to treat infections with the Candida fungus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) now considers it an “urgent antimicrobial resistance threat” because it spreads easily in health care settings, is increasingly resistant to antifungal drugs, and can cause serious infections, sometimes deadly, particularly in hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems.

In some patients, the CDC report says, this fungus can enter the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, causing serious invasive infections. It often does not respond to commonly used antifungal medications, making infections difficult to treat.

Patients who have been hospitalized in a health care facility for a long time, have a central venous catheter or other lines or tubes going into their body, or have previously received antibiotics or antifungal medications appear to be at the highest risk of infection.

 

The essentials to know about Candida auris
1. A laboratory test is needed. Symptoms are not always detected because infections often occur in people who are already sick with another disease. Additionally, the fungus can infect a variety of parts of the body causing different symptoms, according to the CDC.

2. Most infections can be treated with echinocandins, but not all. Several new antifungal drugs are being developed, but more research is needed to understand patient outcomes with these highly resistant strains, and to guide treatment.

3. Healthy family members are at low risk of becoming infected. If they visit a family member with an infection in a nursing home or hospital, they should wash their hands thoroughly afterwards, according to the CDC.

 

Threat
Infobae highlights that Scott Roberts, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Yale School of Medicine, although he did not participate in the new study, warned that the increase in the prevalence and resistance to drugs of Candida auris implies a serious threat to health .

“I think this problem is not going to go away. I think it's really only going to increase over time”, he considered, while remarking: “Unlike other fungi that are normally acquired from the environment, Candida auris spreads easily from person to person”.

And he added: “Once it settles in, in a nursing home, for example, it is almost impossible to eradicate. Just like when it is in patients, they can be colonized for years, even for their entire lives.”

 

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