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Since its discovery in 2009, Candida auris has emerged as a serious threat to human health. While it can colonize the skin of healthy people without causing symptoms, the fungus also invades the bloodstreams and wounds of vulnerable people, often in health care settings, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-third of people with these invasive infections die. Last week, the CDC announced more bad news about C. auris: what the agency says is the first evidence that highly drug-resistant strains of the fungus are spreading from person to person.
“If you wanted to conjure up a nightmare scenario for a drug-resistant pathogen, this would be it,” Cornelius Clancy, an infectious diseases doctor at the VA Pittsburgh Health Care System, tells The New York Times. “An untreatable fungus infection would pose a grave threat to the immunocompromised, transplant recipients ...
