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  Drug-resistant deadly super bug thriving in hospitals hit hard by COVID-19

  Posted by Unknown Member on 24 October 2020 at 4:11 am

  Doctors worry that a dangerous yeast, which can colonize a person’s skin without generating symptoms, is rising due to medical centers being overrun.

  First reported from a doctor working at the Royal Brompton Hospital, the largest heart and lung center in the United Kingdom after observing a yeast was invading the skin of patients, spreading through the intensive care unit, even though the hospital maintained extensive protocols for infection control.

  An infectious disease expert, Johanna Rhodes at Imperial College London who studies anti-fungal resistance was asked to identify the pathogen and help eradicate it from the premises.

  The germ was Candida auris, little known at the time. What she saw stunned her, she is recently quoted as saying “You think COVID-19 is bad until you see Candida auris.” so why is no one reporting on this pathogen?

  Candida auris is a superbug, a pathogen that can evade drugs made to kill it—and early signs suggest the COVID-19 pandemic may be propelling infections of the highly dangerous yeast. That’s because C. auris is particularly prominent in hospital settings, which have been flooded with people this year due to the coronavirus.

  The superbug sticks stubbornly to surfaces such as sheets, bed railings, doors, and medical devices—making it easier to colonize skin and pass from one person to another. Moreover patients who have tubes that go into their body, such as catheters or ones for breathing or feeding, are at the highest risk for C. auris infections, and these invasive procedures have become more common because of the respiratory failure associated with COVID-19.

  “Unfortunately, there have been places where we’ve seen a resurgence of C. auris,” says Tom Chiller, head of the mycotic diseases branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’ve also seen it get into some of the acute care hospitals and also into some COVID-19 units … the concern there is that once it sets up shop in a place, it’s hard to get rid of.”

  Prior to its emergence in 2009, fungi in the genus Candida were best known for causing benign cases of thrush, a white overgrowth on the tongue or genitals. A few thousand C. auris infections have since spread to at least 40 countries where they’ve been tied to deaths in 30 to 60 percent of cases.

  By comparison, the coronavirus kills about one percent of the infected, but has afflicted a larger number of people in a short timespan.

  Last year, the CDC classified C. auris as one of the biggest drug resistance threats in America. Now, though it’s too early to confirm a direct knock-on effect, the U.S. has recorded 1,272 confirmed cases of C. auris in 2020, a 400 percent increase over the total recorded during all of 2018, the most recent year with available data.

  The real number is likely to be much higher, though, as the COVID-19 pandemic has halted much of the disease surveillance for C. auris at hospitals and because the germ can often colonize a person’s skin without generating symptoms.

  Such super bugs may also be contributing to the tens of thousands of excess deaths occurring during the COVID-19 era. Hence why doctors around the world are sounding the alarm.

  Unknown Member replied 4 years, 8 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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