A deadly fungus has been spreading through health facilities throughout the United States.
According to several reports, Candida auris, or C. auris is spreading through health facilities and can cause severe illness in people with weak immune systems. However, the Washington Post reports that scientists believe that C. auris is no threat to people with robust immune systems.
NBC News reports that people found to have C. auris have risen at alarming rates.
Dr. Meghan Lyman, chief medical officer in the CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Branch, said, “The increase, especially in the most recent years, are really concerning to us. We’ve seen increases not just in areas of ongoing transmission, but also in new areas.”
At least 12 people have been infected with the fungus since November; it’s possible that four people have possibly died from C.auris, Dr. Paul Byers said.
“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,” Byers added
According to NBC News, from 2019 to 2022, the number of infections increased by 59%, to 756, from 2019 to 2020 and in 2021, by an additional 95%, to 1,471, in 2021.
Dr. Waleed Javaid, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert and director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York, said “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.
C. auris was identified in 2009 in Asia.
“It’s the pattern we’ve observed with these types of pathogens,” Dr. Graham Snyder, medical director of infection prevention at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told NBC News. “Often they start out extremely rare, then they emerge in more and more places and become widespread.”