An official of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a warning about a new fungal infection spreading “dramatically” across the US in a recent research.
The study, which was released on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal, claimed that the fungus, a kind of yeast known as Candida auris or C auris, can cause serious sickness in persons with weakened immune systems.
The body is covered in the fungus, even the skin.said “C auris cases and transmission have risen in recent years, with a dramatic increase in 2021,” the research said.
The research evaluated all Candida auris cases that the CDC received between 2016—the year that instances were first discovered in the US—and 2021.
Total of 3,270 clinical cases and 7,413 screening cases of C auris
Up until the end of December 2021, researchers discovered a total of 3,270 clinical cases and 7,413 screening cases of C auris in the US.
“The percentage increase in clinical cases grew each year, from a 44 per cent increase in 2019 to a 95 per cent increase in 2021,” the paper said.
17 states of US identified their first C auris case from 2019-21.
“These findings highlight the need for improved detection and infection control practices to prevent spread of C auris,” the paper said.
The fungus infection is a “urgent threat,” according to the CDC, because it frequently evades treatment with many drugs, spreads quickly across hospitals, and can result in fatal illness.
It can be carried on people’s skin without any symptoms
Additionally, it can be carried on people’s skin without any symptoms, making it easy to spread to others. It is also resistant to some common disinfectants.
The CDC’s warning comes as Mississippi battles an expanding fungal outbreak.
Four “potentially associated deaths” have been reported in connection with at least 12 C auris infections since November, according to Tammy Yates, a spokesman for the Mississippi State Department of Health, in an email to NBC.
The researchers hypothesise that the “pandemic-related strain on the health care and public health system” may have contributed to the timing of this enhanced spread.
The fungus, according to researchers, can cause serious illness in persons with weakened immune systems.
The increases, “particularly in the most recent years, are really concerning to us,” said Dr. Meghan Lyman, the study’s lead author and the chief medical officer of the CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Branch, in an interview with NBC.
Transmission in new areas
“We’ve seen increases not just in areas of ongoing transmission, but also in new areas,” she added.
Experts said the increased prevalence and drug resistance of Candida auris is a serious health threat.
“I think this problem is not going to go away. I think it’s really only going to increase over time,” Dr Scott Roberts, an infectious disease specialist at the Yale School of Medicine who was not involved with the new study, told CNN. “Once it sets up shop, in a nursing home for example, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
“Once it’s on patients too, it can kind of just be colonized for years, if not their life.”
The Last of Us, an HBO hit post-apocalyptic TV series, depicts a dystopian world in which Cordyceps, a heat-adapted fungus that actually exists in the real world, takes over humans and transforms them into zombies. The new study draws an unsettling parallel to this dystopian world.
However, experts have noted that while fungus-related illnesses affect people because of the climate problem, there is no proof that they can cause people to transform into zombies.
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