Candida Auris outbreaks, how this fungus got even more dangerous

Candida auris may be a fungus. But there is nothing fun about it C. auris epidemics that have occurred in Texas and Washington, DC.

From January to April 2021, Washington, DC, reported 101 cases of C. auris and Texas had 22, according to Thursday’s edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report (MMWR).

That alone is bad news. If someone asked you if you would like it C. auris on your Benedict Cumberbatch tuxedo belt you should say no to this creative collision. As I reported for Forbes in 2019, the CDC already dubbed C. auris an “emerging global threat”. It is highly transmissible, which means that this yeast can be easily transmitted from person to person or even from object to person. it helped C. auris distributed in different health establishments. So, at the level of the “yeast”, it is important to pay attention to C. auris, which can range from sitting down or “colonizing” your skin to invading your body. And this fungus can kill you, especially when your immune system is weak.

That alone, of course, is bad. But in case you were saying after 2020, there just isn’t enough bad news, see what is happening now with C. auris. Of the 123 cases reported in Washington, DC and Texas, five (three in DC and two in Texas) had C. auris who was pan-resistant. In this case, “pan resistant” does not mean that it cannot be touched by a frying pan. Instead, “pan-resistant” means that it cannot be treated by the three standard types of antifungal drugs: echinocandin, azoles, and amphotericin B. This is because “pan” can be. a prefix meaning “all”. Now an azole is no different way of saying ass exit or calling a person a jerk. Rather, it is a class of drugs that includes fluconazole. Speaking of fluconazole, five of the cases in Texas were infected with C. auris which was resistant to two types of antifungal drugs: echinocandins and fluconazole. It’s not yet pan-resistant, but it’s getting closer and closer.

Now you may first think that five pan-resistant cases isn’t a big deal. But so far, such cases have been quite rare. Even three heavy-duty pans C. auris New York cases from August 2016 to June 2019 were enough to grab attention in a previous CDC MMWR. Compare that to five in the first four months of 2021. Additionally, pan-resistant cases in 2019 included patients who had not been exposed to echinocandin and had visited the same health facilities. This suggests that, for the first time in the United States, strains resistant to pan and echinocandin of C. auris spread from patient to patient in health care settings instead of just emerging in a given patient from antifungal treatment.

As previously mentioned, C. auris infections can be fatal, as 30% of cases reported in Texas and Washington, DC this year have resulted in death. Now we don’t know how many C. auris may have contributed to each of these deaths. But it probably didn’t help in all cases.

It should be aa Candi-no duh to do more to stop the spread of Candida auris. More resources are needed to improve surveillance systems and infection control measures. More antifungal treatments also need to be developed. It is still unclear how best to treat pan-resistant infections and whether existing combinations of antifungal treatments will suffice at this time. But people have a habit of not paying more attention to a problem until it hits them in the face like a frying pan.