CDC Warns Of Dangerous Fungal Infection Spreading Through US At ‘Alarming Rate’

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

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.

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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.

There were at least 2,377 confirmed clinical cases of Candida auris in the United States in 2022, according to CDC statistics, up from 1,474 cases in 2021 and 757 cases in 2020.

Data shows the fungal disease is now present in more than half of U.S. states.

Separate data from the CDC published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on March 20 also found that screening cases—in which the fungus is detected but is not causing infection—tripled from 2020 to 2021, from 1,310 to 4,041 cases.

The CDC has said it is concerned with the tripling in 2021 of the number of cases that were resistant to echinocandins, antifungal drugs that are typically the first line of treatment for Candida auris.

CDC officials said in a press release that the number of Candida auris cases may have risen for multiple reasons, including poor general infection prevention and control practices in health care facilities, although enhanced efforts to detect cases may have also contributed to the rise.

“The timing of this increase and findings from public health investigations suggest C. auris spread may have worsened due to strain on healthcare and public health systems during the COVID-19 pandemic,” CDC officials added.

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