Deadly fungus C auris may be spreading in the community
Health authorities believe a deadly fungus is now spreading outside hospitals for the first time.
Candida auris is a microscopic strain of yeast that has become ubiquitous in healthcare in recent years, where it kills up to a third of the people it infects.
Now Nevada public health officials say they’ve discovered a cluster unrelated to hospitals.
The development contributes to increased fears of mold outbreaksfollowing the popular apocalyptic HBO show ‘The Last of Us’, which depicts a fungus that turns victims into zombies.
It comes after two daughters who lost their mother to deadly yeast infections shared their hellish travails with DailyMail.com.
Nevada has had the highest number of cases in the US in the past year with 384, followed by California with 359 cases and Florida with 349
Sharon McCreary (left) with her mother Lorrie McCreary (right) at a 2017 MLB baseball game. Lorrie died after contracting Candida auris in a hospital last year
Mark Pandori, director of the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno’s medical school, told the Las Vegas Review Journal that five cases have been reported in Nevada implying transmission may have occurred outside of a healthcare facility.
He added that the evidence is weak and more research is needed.
As of 2021, more than 1,200 cases of Cauris have been found in Southern Nevada.
Nevada had the highest number of C auris cases in America last year, at 384, according to the CDC.
Behind Nevada is California with 359 cases and Florida with 349. Before 2021, no cases of Cauris had been found in Nevada.
Some experts have argued that molds are becoming more common worldwide as changing climates make environments more suitable for them.
Fungi usually can’t tolerate the warmer temperature of the human body, but scientists think C auris may have adapted to survive in a warming climate.
The highest numbers are in the country’s major coastal cities. New York state has been hardest hit, with 1,325 cases since 2016, followed by Illinois with 1,044 cases and California with 813 cases. Next is Florida, which has recorded 683 cases, New Jersey (419) and Nevada (408), based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2013 and 2022
The number of clinical and screening cases of C auris reported to the CDC between 2013 and 2021
Most transmission occurs in healthcare facilities, especially among residents of long-term care facilities or those with internal devices – such as catheters, tracheostomies or wound drains – or on mechanical ventilators.
But the fungus can enter the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, leading to potentially deadly invasive C auris infections, such as in internal organs.
The fungus kills more than one in three people with invasive C auris.
Healthy people usually don’t get sick, but among the weak and vulnerable, it kills up to 60 percent.
Last October, the first US cluster of pediatric cases was discovered in four children with heart defects at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas.
One of the babies died.
The report at the time, based on a site inspection in May 2022, said: ‘Fewer than 10 cases of C auris have been reported in children in the United States and no clusters of multiple pediatric cases in a single facility have previously been identified. .’
Earlier this year, there were outbreaks of the fungus in multiple hospitals in Nevada.
People contract the Cauris by touching an infected person. Cauris can also be transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces or equipment, where it can survive for weeks.
Common symptoms of the infection include persistent fever and chills and no response to antibiotic treatment for a bacterial infection.
Cauris showed up simultaneously in hospitals in India, South Africa and South America more than a decade ago. Researchers don’t know why, but speculate that climate change could have played a role.
Fungi usually can’t tolerate the warmer temperature of the human body, but scientists think C auris may have adapted to survive in a warming environment.
Another theory suggested in 2019 was that Ca auris may have existed as a plant fungus that adapted to exist in both salt water and warmer temperatures due to global warming.
The type of plant would have been a saprophyte – a plant that lacks chlorophyll and instead gets its food from dead organic matter.
Researchers at the University of Texas speculated that birds could have transmitted it from salt marshes around the world to rural areas where birds and humans often interact.
Sharon McCreary, 61, told DailyMail.com that her mother Lorraine, 86, suffered a fatal stroke last summer after contracting C auris.
Lorrie, as she was known to friends and family, was initially admitted in June with pneumonia, not unusual for her later stage in life.
But just as she was beginning to recover, her condition rapidly deteriorated and doctors conducted a barrage of tests to find the cause.
She was diagnosed with C auris. Doctors believe she contracted the fungus through oxygen tubes.
The infection began a fatal chain of events for Lorrie, with the C auris deteriorating into sepsis and kidney failure, eventually leading to a fatal stroke.