Chicago medical expert sounds alarm over drug-resistant Candida auris fungal infections
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning about a deadly fungus spreading across the country at an alarming rate.
The number of infections has tripled over the last three years. Only a handful of states have more cases than Illinois – which has reported nearly 300 over the past 12 months.
The drug-resistant fungus Candida auris is mostly seen in nursing homes. As CBS2's Chris Tye reported Tuesday night, some medical shortcuts taken during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic may have fueled the spread.
Candida auris is a yeast that is usually not harmful to healthy people. But it can be deadly to fragile hospital and nursing home patients.
It spreads easily and can infect wounds, ears, and even the bloodstream. In infecting the bloodstream or heart valve, it can be deadly.
As America's doctors threw everything they had at stopping COVID, Candida auris began to spike quietly.
"I am concerned about it," said Dr. Mary Hayden, director of infectious diseases at Rush University Medical Center. "I am concerned that it got worse during the pandemic."
Cases of the Candida auris are now climbing at an "alarming" rate in health care facilities around the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Monday, after reports of infected patients nearly doubled in 2021.
For several years after the first American cases were reported in 2016, only a few dozen Candida auris patients were reported to the CDC annually. But cases have begun to accelerate in recent years, according to the new CDC data published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
By 2021, the annual tally of cases had increased 95 percent, from 756 in 2020 to 1,471 in 2021. Preliminary figures count at least another 2,377 cases for 2022. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have now reported Candida auris patients.
CBS 2 is tracking the spread. In 2016, Illinois had just six cases of drug-resistant Candida auris – while Indiana had none.
Over the last 12 months, it has ballooned to 276 cases in Illinois and 87 in Indiana.
Candida auris tricky to detect spreading by unwashed hands or medical equipment. Its spike during COVID is not an accident, according to Hayden.
"With COVID when we were so short, sometimes somebody might wear a gown form patient to patient - and then if that gown was contaminated, it's possible that that might have allowed some transmission," Hayden said. "So again, these were like when we were really in crisis, early on."
Nursing homes are seeing the most Candida auris cases. If your loved one is in is in a nursing home, Hayden says you should ask some tough questions.
"Have you had any patients with Candida auris in this nursing home, and if you have, what are the measures that you're taking to try to prevent other patients from getting it?" Hayden advised to ask.
The first Candida auris case was found in Japan in 2009. The first U.S. case was in 2013, but it was not confirmed until 2016.