Morgantown : At the end of March 2023, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned about a rapidly spreading fungus called ‘Candida auris’, due to which patients are getting infected and dying in hospitals in the country. An increase in infections caused by this fungus has been observed in the US. Professor and Physician of Infectious Diseases at West Virginia University Arif R. Sarvari talks about Candida auris, how it’s spreading, and how people in the US are concerned about it.
Candida auris has recently been identified as a unicellular fungus that can infect humans and is moderately resistant to anti-fungal drugs. Infection with Candida auris is more dangerous than infection with other fungi. Candida auris is a type of ‘yeast’ first identified in 2009 and is one of several species in the Candida family that can infect people. Healthy people do not need to worry about Candida infection. But patients with serious illnesses and those admitted to the intensive care unit in hospitals are at a higher risk of becoming infected with Candida auris.
In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of infections caused by fungus, especially Candida auris, in the United States. According to the CDC, few cases were reported between 2013 and 2016, but in 2017, its cases increased rapidly and in 2022, 2,377 cases were registered. Cases of death due to Candida auris infection have also increased. In 2018, where 1,010 people died due to its infection, in 2021 this number increased to 1,800. The reasons for this increase are complex, but according to Sarwari, there could be two main reasons: First, the number of sick patients admitted to hospitals and the increased strain on the health system, both of which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic .
According to doctors, there are some major ways to prevent it. The most effective measures include adoption of infection prevention habits, ie, proper hand washing before and after contact with a patient, destruction of clothing and gloves worn during contact with the patient, and other preventive measures. However, these small precautionary steps are effective not only on fungus but also on other microbes. Another option is to develop better drugs to treat newer, antifungal-resistant forms of Candida. However, work continues on the development of many new antifungal drugs.
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