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A highly antibiotic-resistant fungal superbacterium that has swept over 30 countries has reached Australian shores.
Candida auris is a yeast that kills 60% of infected people and no longer responds to the main treatments.
A 70-year-old Victorian man was infected with the disease after visiting a hospital in the United Kingdom in August.
"All cases so far reported in Australia involve people hospitalized abroad, where C. auris is more common," says the Better Health Victoria website.
It was first discovered in Tokyo in 2009, in the ear of a 70 year old Japanese woman.
An antibiotic-resistant fungal superbacterium that has swept over 30 countries reached Australia's shores
Candida auris, a harmful form of yeast, is "almost unbeatable and hard to identify," according to the Connecticut epidemiologist.
This is the most alarming "superbact" for the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has infected more than 600 Americans since 2013.
However, hospitals are not obliged to inform patients where they have the infection, which is most often contracted in hospitals, according to a new alarming feature of The New York Times.
In the United States, 300 New Yorkers have been infected since 2013, 144 in Illinois and 104 in New Jersey, and hundreds more in the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, in Colombia, Venezuela and more.
The spread, in the face of growing drug resistance, prompted the CDC to update its guidelines – urging doctors to quarantine people with C auris.
However, according to the New York Times, CDC rules allow states and hospitals to keep the number of their infections secret.
The measure is aimed at protecting centers and states from panic and media attention, but experts have warned that it leaves the general public unaware of a serious threat.
Identified for the first time in Japan in 2009, the mushroom has spread to more than 12 countries around the world.
Between 2013 and April 2017, there were 66 cases in the United States.
Now there have been 587, with 30 more likely cases.
"It's pretty much unbeatable and hard to identify," said Dr. Lynn Sosa, Connecticut's badociate epidemiologist, at The New York Times.
CDC badyzes show that most cases (approximately 86%) are resistant to current antifungal therapy, approximately half (43%) of fluconazole were resistant to amphotericin B, used for the treatment of aggressive fungal infections, and 3 % resistant to echinocandins. standard treatment for a bacterial infection like this.
According to a 2017 report, most cases have been distributed in hospitals or between family members.
"In Illinois, three cases were badociated with the same long-term care facility," the researchers wrote in the weekly report on morbidity and mortality.
"In New York and New Jersey, cases have been identified in several acute care hospitals, but a survey found that most stays were confused in long-term care facilities and health care hospitals. short-term interconnected located in a limited geographical area.
"The case in Mbadachusetts was related to the affairs of Illinois.
The screening of 390 close contacts showed that 12% were colonized by C auris.
WHAT IS C?
Candida auris (C auris) is a form of harmful yeast, identified by the CDC as a "superbug" fungus.
It tends to be diagnosed in patients after several weeks of hospitalization.
The fungus can infect wounds, ears and blood and take root in the urinary tract.
The source of C auris infection is not the sick person, but the hospital environment, including catheters, counters and other surfaces.
It was first identified in Japan in 2009 and has since expanded to more than a dozen countries around the world.
Two of the three types of commonly used antifungal medications have had little effect in treatment.
About 60% of people infected with C auris died.
Tests in the patient's rooms also detected C auris in "mattresses, beds, window sills, chairs, infusion pumps and worktops … C auris did not not isolated from rooms after thorough cleaning with a disinfectant based on sodium hypochlorite ".
What also makes the fungus so dangerous is that it is difficult to recognize and is often misidentified as being related to other related yeasts – many people may not say they have actually a serious infection.
"It acts like a bacterium," said Dr. Paige Armstrong of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fungus has been found on surfaces in hospital rooms and on the skin of nurses and patients, even after patients have been treated with antifungal medications.
The most vulnerable patients to superbug are the fragile patients in hospitals, especially newborns and the elderly.
It tends to be diagnosed in patients after several weeks of hospitalization. The fungus can infect wounds, ears and blood and take root in the urinary tract.
American clinicians have been warned to monitor the fungus in hospitals. Patients who have recently undergone surgery, used a central venous catheter or have been hospitalized for long periods of time, as well as those with diabetes, are particularly at risk.
About 60% of people infected with C auris have died, the CDC said.
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