The deadly fungus, considered an immediate public health threat by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has spread at “an alarming rate” during the pandemic, the CDC said Monday.
A fungus called Candida auris preys mainly on older people with weakened immune systems and is especially dangerous. General antifungal drug. C. auris he was first reported in the United States in 2016 and most prominently appeared in New York and Illinois. Public health officials hoped to contain C. auris through rigorous screening and infection control in long-term care facilities and nursing homes.
However, during 2021, state and local health departments across the country reported 1,474 clinical cases. That’s a more than 200% increase for him from 476 in 2019.
The surge represents a “dramatic increase” in C. auris case load and transmission, according to a research paper published Monday in the Annals of Medicine and compiled by CDC researchers. A few cases, but They are concentrated in California, Nevada, Texas and Florida.
The new paper did not include case numbers from 2022. however, CDC website Tracking the spread of the fungus shows that 2,377 infections were reported last year, another sharp increase.
Details of the coronavirus pandemic
- Origin of Covid: A lab leak was once dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory about the origins of Covid-19. But the idea is now gaining momentum, despite building evidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan market.
- Maternal mortality: According to government data, maternal deaths in 2021 will increase by 40% compared to 2020 and 60% compared to 2019. Another report suggests that Covid played a role in the increase.
- pax robid: The FDA’s panel of expert advisors has approved Paxlovid as a treatment for adults with Covid who are at high risk of severe illness. The move could lead to full approval of drugs that were available under emergency use authorizations.
Meghan Lyman, M.D., medical officer for the CDC’s Division of Fungal Diseases, said the CDC doesn’t have enough knowledge about the number of fungal deaths. The reason is that infected people are also dealing with multiple other health problems, so C. auris could cause death, or contribute to hasten it along with other ill health factors. Because there is
CDC officials said the coronavirus pandemic likely exacerbated the spread of C. auris. Due to the focus on Covid-19, less emphasis was placed on screening for C. auris.The fungus also tends to cling to nursing gowns, gloves, and other personal protective equipment that are frequently replaced under ideal conditions but reused during the pandemic due to shortages in supply. C. auris can also adhere to ventilators and other medical equipment
“I was worried about what would happen during Covid,” said Dr. Lyman. She characterized the spread as “concerning but not surprising.”
C. auris is not a particular threat to young healthy people, whose immune system is able to fight it off, but it can be transmitted through skin and clothing. It is especially common in patients who are difficult to clean and eradicate due to frequent or long visits to medical facilities.
A challenge in treating C. auris stems from the fact that it can be resistant to antifungal drugs. In 2020, a research paper found that 86% of bacterial samples tested by CDC’s Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory Network were resistant to a class of drugs known as azoles.
Of further concern to health officials, 1.2% developed resistance that year to a frontline class of drugs called echinocandins. If resistance to echinocandins becomes more common as the bacterium evolves, treating C. auris could become very difficult, if not impossible, health officials said.
Lyman also said the news isn’t all bad. Intensive efforts to stop the spread of the bacterium in New York and Illinois appear to have been effective in containing C. auris within the health care systems of those states.
“It’s not a hopeless situation,” Dr. Lyman said.
