Candidiasis aureus has already been dubbed a new global threat: an outbreak of an unreactive yeast-like fungus is raging in US hospitals; European healthcare is preparing to take a hit any day now. Why is this infection dangerous?
Traces of candida auris were first found in 1996 in South Korea, and in 2009 in Tokyo the infection was proven in an elderly Japanese woman – the fungus lived in the ear of an old woman.
Since 2016, the active spread of the pathogen in US hospitals has been noticed; in 2018 it was recorded for the first time in Russia. In 2022 (WHO) ranked Candida auris as one of the 25 most dangerous pathogenic fungi for human health, including it in the group of four most dangerous (in addition to Candida aureus, the list includes Cryptococcus neoformans, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albicans).
The infamous fungus, a close relative of Candida, which causes nasty but not deadly thrush, is a so-called opportunistic infection, meaning healthy people are immune to it. But those whose immunity is in poor condition (or which has not yet formed, as in newborns) are attacked.
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This is why hospital spaces have become a real paradise for this type of yeast-like fungi. Plus, it doesn’t spread in the traditional way – candida auris lives on surfaces and just waiting for the chance to latch onto a post-chemotherapy patient with diabetes, HIV, and other illnesses and conditions. that violate the immune barrier.
Death of a person infected with a fungus occurs in 30-60% of cases. The pathogen affects the central nervous system and internal organs, enters the bloodstream. But people don’t die because of candida, but because of the systemic disorders it causes in the body weakened by the underlying disease.
In an interview with Vechernyaya Moskva, infectious disease doctor Elena Meskina assured that the disease is not yet dangerous for Russia, because the variant that has spread to the United States has not “taken root”. in our country.
It is important that cases of infection of a large number of patients with candidiasis aureus have been recorded not only in the United States, but also in Venezuela, Great Britain and Spain – but it has not been easy for the health systems of these countries to admit that the increased mortality was caused by a dangerous fungus.