An emerging fungal threat spread at an alarming rate in US health care facilities, study says

Clinical cases of Candida auris, an emerging fungus considered an urgent threat, nearly doubled in 2021, according to new data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …  rising from 53 in 2016 to 330 in 2018 and then skyrocketing from 476 in 2019 to 1,471 in 2021.

It’s resistant to drugs and disinfectants; a lot of people can be carriers and not know it. It usually causes harm to people with compromised immune systems, is difficult to eradicate either in people or facilities once it sets up shop. It was first discovered in 2009 in Japan, being found for the first time in the US in 2013. Somewhere between 30% and 60% of the people who develop Candida auris bloodstream infections die, but they also had other conditions.