A recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that a fungus that has evolved to infect humans is rapidly spreading in health care facilities in the United States and becoming increasingly difficult to treat. Microbiologist and immunologist Arturo Casadevall, who studies fungal infections, says that the rise of cases and antifungal resistance is “concerning.” He adds that “you worry because [the study] is telling you what could be a harbinger of things to come.” Casadevall, who is from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was not involved in the CDC study.
Researchers also found 4,041 individuals who carried the fungus in 2021 but were not sick at the time in tests of people at high risk of infection. A small percentage of carriers may later get sick from the fungus, says Meghan Lyman, a medical epidemiologist in the CDC’s Mycotic Diseases Branch in Atlanta, possibly developing bloodstream infections that carry a high risk of death.
C. auris infections began appearing suddenly in hospitals on three continents in 2012, probably evolving to grow at human body temperature as a result of climate change. The fungus, which is typically detected through blood or urine tests, usually infects people in health care settings such as hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, and long-term care homes. Because people who get infected are often already sick, it can be hard to tell whether symptoms such as fevers are from the existing illness or an infection.
Source from www.sciencenews.org