A drug-resistant and potentially deadly fungus has been spreading rapidly through U.S. health care facilities, a new government study finds.
The number of people diagnosed with infections — as well as the number of those who were found through screening to be carrying C. auris — has been rising at an alarming rate since it wasin the U.S., researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.
The CDC's new warning, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, comes as Mississippi is fighting a growing outbreak of the fungus. Since November, at least 12 people have been infected with C. auris with four"potentially associated deaths," according to the state's health department,. At the center of the Mississippi outbreak is a long-term care facility, although a small number of cases have been reported at other facilities in the state.
The researchers also found that the incidence of people not infected with the fungus but colonized by it increased by 21% in 2020, compared to 2019, and by 209% in 2021, with an increase to 4,041 in 2021 compared to 1,310 in 2020.Most concerning was the increasing numbers of fungus samples resistant to the common treatments for it. Lyman hopes the paper will put C. auris on health care providers’ radar and spur facilities to practice “good infection control.
Even if C. auris moves beyond health care facilities and into communities, it’s unlikely to become a problem for healthy people who do not have invasive medical devices, such as catheters, inserted into their blood vessels, Javaid said.
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