The dangerous fungi spreading among the US health care system has not slowed down.
A new study reveals that Candida Auris (C. Auris) has been spreading rapidly to hospitals since it was first reported in 2016.
In March 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was C. More than 4,000 new clinical cases of Auris have been reported and dubbed “The threat of emergency antibiotics (AR)”.
Fungi are resistant to multiple antifungal drugs and can cause “life-threatening diseases.”
C. Auris is already affecting people who are sick because it “spreads easily” in health care facilities, the CDC says on its website.
A new study published in the American Journal of Infection Control on March 17th analyzed clinical cultures of C. Auris across the United States collected between 2019 and 2023.
The number of clinical cultures increased by 580% between 2019 and 2020, 46% in 2022 in 2021 and 7% in 2023.
“The amount of clinical cultures with C. auris increases rapidly and involves an expansion of the source of infection,” the researchers concluded, primarily at the University of Miami.
Joanna Wagner of the Georgia Department of Public Health shared with her local ABC News affiliate WJCL, and that Georgia, one of the affected states, had detected more than 1,300 cases as of the end of February.
“Many disinfectants for EPA registered agents historically used in hospitals and medical facilities are not effective against C. Auris,” Wagner said.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a senior medical analyst at Fox News at Nyu Langone and clinical professor of medicine, said C. We consider Auris to be a “new issue of great concern.”
“It's resistant to multiple antifungal drugs and tends to spread to hospital environments, such as ventilators and catheters, which are used in immunocompromised or semi-immunocompromised patients,” he said.
“Unfortunately, symptoms such as fever, chills and pain can be ubiquitous and can be mistaken for other infectious diseases.”
According to Siegel, “major research” is underway to develop new treatments.
“This is part of a much larger problem with antibiotic resistance that appears in the US and around the world,” the doctor warned.
“At the same time, sterilization and disinfection measures in hospitals are extremely helpful.”
Georgia healthcare facilities reportedly use certified US Environmental Protection Agency cleaners designed to attack fungi.
According to the CDC, C. Auris can cause severe infections with high mortality rates in people with illness, but “it is not a threat to healthy people.”
Fox News Digital has contacted the lead research author and the Georgia Department of Public Health for comment.
