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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is tracking the rise of a deadly, treatment-resistant fungus that’s causing outbreaks in a growing number of health care facilities across the country.
New data compiled by a CDC research team, published Mar. 21 in Annals of Internal Medicine, show that Candida auris infections have increased dramatically in the U.S. in recent years. In 2021, national cases reported by health care facilities increased by 95%, and from 2019 to 2021, 17 states reported their first case. With infections recorded in a total of 28 states and the District of Columbia, these numbers suggest that current disinfection and safety measures at care facilities may not be sufficient.
Experts do not currently view C. auris as much of a threat to the wider population, since most healthy people are not at risk for severe infections, which tend to spread in hospital settings. But there are fears that it could someday evolve to become one.
The first U.S. case of C. auris infection was reported in 2016, and though travel later brought it to a number of states, “early on, we weren’t seeing such such a dramatic increase,” says Meghan Lyman, a medical officer in the CDC’s mycotic diseases branch and first author on the paper. “That gave us some hope.” Things changed in 2019, she says, when an influx of states reporting outbreaks made it clear that the threat was here to stay. “We’ve realized it’s just a really fragile situation.” A 2022 study described a concurrent increase in European outbreaks, and the CDC says that infections have occurred in more than 30 countries worldwide since the fungus first emerged in Japan in 2009.
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The new findings may also reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020,…
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