Why the Deadly Fungus Candida Auris Is Scaring People

A rapid rise in reports from around the world of a deadly fungal infection is sounding alarm bells about the dangers of drug resistant diseases. First discovered in Japan in 2009, Candida auris is a type of yeast that can cause severe illness and spreads easily in health care facilities. Cases proliferated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Widespead infections in the US led the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to label it an “urgent threat.” More recently, scientists in China called for closer monitoring of the potentially fatal fungus after a study showed found that almost all of the cases recorded there in 2023 exhibited resistance to drugs.

First reported in the US in 2016, C. auris started to spread rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the CDC, in 2022 there were 2,377 American clinical cases, in which a patient presents with symptoms, and an additional 5,754 screening cases, in which an asymptomatic individual tests positive. In the latest outbreak, four people tested positive for the diseases in Washington D.C, the first ever report there. A study led by researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University and Tongji University found that there were 182 outbreaks of C. auris in China in 2023. That’s a marked increase from previous years, when the numbers ranged from 8 to 26. According to the study, almost all of the strains tested in China were resistant to the anti-fungal drug fluconazole, and a small percentage couldn’t be treated with two other fungicides, caspofungin or amphotericin B. The increase in cases could be due to enhanced efforts to detect the fungus. Similar surges have been seen in some European countries, alongside outbreaks in India and South Africa.