A new report has warned that a possibly deadly fungus that seems to be heavily resistant to medicine has taken root and in spreading throughout hospitals all over the nation.
Candida auris, or C. auris, has the potential to be quite fatal for humans that have immune systems which are already weakened by other things; roughly one-third of people who come in contact with this fungus end up dying, as the fungus attacks the body via infection of the heart, bloodstream, and subsequently the brain. Healthy people with standard immune systems do not seem to be at risk of dying as a result of an infection.
“Unfortunately, multi-drug resistant organisms such as C. auris have become more prevalent among our highest risk individuals, such as residents in long-term care facilities,” explained one spokesperson for the Mississippi State Department of Health, Tammy Yates.
Recalling back to this past November, four separate people have suffered “potentially associated deaths,” because of the fungus in the state of Mississippi, explained Yates.
“If [the fungi] get into a hospital, they are very difficult to control and get out,” explained William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “They can persist, smoldering, causing infections for a considerable period of time despite the best efforts of the infection control team and everyone else in the hospital.”
The presence of this fungus within the U.S. was widely reported at first back in 2016 when four people reportedly died from the disease.
The report put out by the CDC explains that clinical cases within the United States spiked from 476 in 2019 to 1,471 in 2021.
“We’ve seen increases not just in areas of ongoing transmission, but also in new areas,” explained the leader of the study, Dr. Meghan Lyman.
Pointing out that the findings are quite “worrisome,” stated infectious disease expert Dr. Waleed Javaid, “But we don’t want people who watched ‘The Last of Us’ to think we’re all going to die. This is an infection that occurs in extremely ill individuals who are usually sick with a lot of other issues.”
The fungus can be spread not just from person to person but also via contact with an infected room.
“By its nature it has an extreme ability to survive on surfaces,” Javaid expressed. “It can colonize walls, cables, bedding, chairs. We clean everything with bleach and UV light.”
A warning was issued by the medical director of infection prevention at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dr. Graham Snyder, that halting the spread of the fungus was very important when you look at the spread of the also drug-resistant MRSA bacteria.
