A fungal infection that can be fatal is spreading at “an alarming rate” across U.S. healthcare facilities and nursing homes, according to a report released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
“The rapid rise and geographic spread of cases is concerning and emphasizes the need for continued surveillance, expanded lab capacity, quicker diagnostic tests, and adherence to proven infection prevention and control,” said CDC epidemiologist Dr. Meghan Lyman, lead author of the paper.
The CDC report looks at the spread of infection of Candida auris, commonly called C. auris, between 2020 and 2021, terming it a “serious global threat.”.
In general, C. auris is a threat to patients who are very sick, have invasive medical devices, or have long or frequent stays in healthcare facilities.
C. auris was first reported in the United States in 2016, and its prevalence has increased each year, with a total of 3,270 clinical cases and 7,413 screening cases reported through December 31, 2021.
Researchers said C. auris is an urgent antimicrobial resistance threat because it is often resistant to multiple antifungal drugs, spreads easily in healthcare facilities, and can cause severe infections with high death rates.
“Equally concerning was a tripling in 2021 of the number of cases that were resistant to echinocandins, the antifungal medicine most recommended for treatment of C. auris infections,” researchers wrote.
Researchers said C. auris case counts have increased for many reasons, including poor general infection prevention and control practices in healthcare facilities.
“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,” researchers said.
However, case counts may also have increased because of enhanced efforts to detect cases.
Also, the overuse of antibiotics can mean serious secondary bacterial infections arising from the spread of C. auris infections, will be less effectively treated.
“We over treat people with antibiotics and that will cause and lead to microbial or antibiotic resistance or antimicrobial treatment,” Dr. Fatima Navqi, Medical Director at Holy Cross Health, told Skilled Nursing News. “And that is another thing we need to be careful with questions about because and that’s the situation when you get these bugs because sometimes we feel we are smarter than the bugs themselves, but actually both are probably smarter than us in many ways.”
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