Candida auris, a resistant fungus that attacks people with weakened immune systems, has been quietly spreading around the world for some time.
Antibiotic resistance of certain bacteria is a known threat to modern medicine. But today, bacteria are no longer the only ones developing resistance: Candida auris, a fungus, is also proving to be a serious and growing threat to public health. It has indeed become drug resistant and has spread to hospitals around the world. A long file of New York Times sounds the alarm.
A fungus that infects several hospitals
There are several types of Candida (or candiosis): cutaneous candidiasis, which develops in areas of perspiration, Candida in the nails, those of the mucous membranes (genital, oral or esophageal) and generalized Candida. It is the latter that we will discuss in this article.
This type of Candida occurs in immunocompromised people (eg AIDS patients). They can spread through the blood or organs and be life-threatening. Last May, an elderly man was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital (Brooklyn, USA) and a blood test revealed that he was infected with a mysterious germ: candida auris. This patient died after 90 days of hospitalization. Over the past five years, Candida auris has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to close its intensive care unit, taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa. , and more recently in New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
An urgent threat
It was recently added to the list of germs considered “urgent threats”. If Candida auris is so tenacious, it is mainly because it is insensitive to the main antifungal drugs. It’s a new example of one of the world’s most insurmountable health threats: the rincrease in drug-resistant infections. Simply put, this fungus, like bacteria, develops defenses to survive modern drugs. It is especially fatal for people whose immune system is weakened (newborns, elderly people, but also smokers, diabetics, and people with autoimmune disorders).
According to scientists, unless new, more effective drugs are developed and the unnecessary use of antimicrobials is greatly reduced, the risk will spread to healthier populations. A British government study funded research against Candida auris. According to New York Timesin the absence of a policy to slow down drug resistance, “10 million people worldwide could die from all these infections in 2050”, i.e. more than the number of cancer-related deaths estimated for this same period (8 million).
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