There’s a dangerous and super untreatable fungus outbreak happening at two North Texas hospitals right now. The superbug is known as Candida Auris, and it is a form of yeast that can be deadly for people with serious medical problems. It can be spread from human to human and through contaminated surfaces.
Dr. Meghan Lyman from CDC stated that this is the first time we’re seeing people getting this infection from each other.
How dangerous is this superbug?
Officials have been talking about the superbug for many years now. Doctors have seen the infections, and the drugs did not really have an effect. Back in 2019, there were three cases in New York, and they were also resistant to a certain class of drugs, called echinocandins – they seemed to be the last chance.
What’s more interesting is that in those cases, the infection did not spread from patient to patient, and the resistance to the drugs must have formed during treatment. But these new cases go from human to human.
How many cases are there?
From January to April, there were 22 cases in Dallas, and a cluster was found in a nursing home. Three from the nursing home and two from the hospital in Dallas were resistant to all of the antifungal medications. From these five, one died.
Dr. Meghan Lyman said that both of these are ongoing outbreaks and that some more infections have been found since April. But investigators taking a look at the medical records have found no pieces of evidence of the previous antifungal use in these patients. This means that the infection spread from person to person.
