According to SciDev.Net, researchers have located a recently emerged environmental multidrug-resistant fungal pathogen on India’s remote Andaman Islands. The fungus Candida auris has plagued hospitals in 40 countries since its emergence a decade ago. This pathogen causes severe infections in hospitalized patients and has been a cause for increased concern of secondary infections in COVID-19 patients.
Medical researchers have struggled to determine the natural origins of C. auris and hypothesize the pathogen’s emergence may be linked to global warming effects on wetlands. Anuradha Chowdhary, professor of mycology and corresponding study author, believes “the isolation of C. auris from uninhabited marine wetlands suggests that prior to its recognition as a human pathogen, it existed as an environmental fungus.”
Both C. auris and SARS-CoV-2 are found on hospital surfaces and those hospitalized often have similar comorbidities, such as diabetes and chronic kidney disease. According to Chowdhary, C. auris is “typically found in immunocompromised patients under prolonged admission and those requiring the use of invasive devices such as catheters, feeding and breathing tubes are especially vulnerable to infections by the fungus or yeast.” Dinesh Raj, a consultant at the Holy Family Hospital in New Dehli, believes that nearly two-thirds of hospitalized patients do not recover if they develop C. auris fungemia.
Chowdhary recommends that strict infection control strategies, such as thorough patient and environmental screening and cohorting colonized patients, be implemented to combat infections with C. auris. Despite the insight gained from this study, additional research is required to fully understand how this fungal pathogen is transmitted to humans.
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