The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning of an increasingly drug-resistant emerging fungus that the health agency says presents a “serious global health threat.”
Candida auris is a rare fungal disease that is easily spread through contact with contaminated surfaces or from person-to-person and can cause severe illness in hospitalized patients and those with weakened immune systems, according to health officials.
In some rare cases, the yeast can enter the bloodstream of patients and spread throughout the body, causing serious invasive candidiasis infections, which can affect the blood, heart, brain, eyes, bones, and other parts of the body and can prove fatal.
Data from a limited number of patents shows that 30 to 60 percent of people diagnosed with the fungal disease have died. However, healthy people typically do not get sick from the fungal disease.
The CDC said it is concerned about Candida auris for three main reasons: it is often multidrug-resistant, it is hard to identify using standard laboratory methods, and it has rapidly caused outbreaks in health care settings.
Additionally, individuals who have been hospitalized in health care facilities for long periods of time—especially those who have breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and central venous catheters going into their bodies—appear to be at the highest risk of contracting Candida auris.
Other risk factors are generally similar to risk factors for other types of Candida infections and include recent surgery, diabetes, and recent use of antibiotics or antifungal medications, initial data shows.
CDC Data Shows Rise in Cases
Infections of Candida auris, also referred to as C. auris, have been found in patients of all ages, from preterm infants to the elderly, health officials say.
According to CDC data, the drug-resistant fungus, which was first detected in the United States in 2016, has been spreading “at an alarming rate” among hospitalized patients in recent years, with clinical cases of the fungus nearly doubling in 2021 and continuing to rise in 2022.
