COUNTY HAS SEEN 20 CASES OF FUNGAL THREAT CDC CALLS A CONCERN
Drug-resistant yeast infection spread at hospitals ‘alarming’
So far this year, San Diego County has already recorded 20 cases of candida auris, the drug-resistant yeast that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned this week is spreading “at an alarming rate in U.S. healthcare facilities.”
First reported in 2016, nationwide infection totals have grown from 476 in 2019 to 1,471 in 2021, according to the
CDC. Locally, there were three cases reported in 2020 and nine in 2021 followed by a significant jump in 2022 with 60 cases identified, according to the county health department. The 20 cases reported locally from January through March set a pace to exceed last year’s total.
Dr. John Bradley, medical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rady Children’s Hospital, stressed Wednesday that this threat is not nearly as wide-reaching as coronavirus has been during the pandemic.
Healthy people, whether adults or children, he explained, can fight off infection with few long-term consequences. It is those with compromised immune systems, and especially those who have recently been treated with antibiotics, who are at risk.
Candida auris, he said, colonizes the surfaces of mucous membranes in the body and generally only invades the bloodstream, causing a potentially deadly infection in patients with diseases such as cancer, known to hurt the body’s ability to fight off infection. Bacteria are generally very good at killing off these yeast cells, and they are naturally present on mucous membranes. But antibiotic treatment kills bacteria, opening up a niche for auris to fill.
Unlike coronavirus, Bradley noted, sharing air with an infected person isn’t enough for auris to spread.
“It’s not airborne, you can’t get it just by talking to someone, you have to touch a surface and touch a mucous membrane so health care workers can potentially spread this from one patient to another if they don’t wash their hands,” Bradley said.
It was not clear Wednesday how many local auris infections have been fatal, though the CDC indicates that based on limited information, somewhere between 30 percent and 60 percent of people who are infected die.
Dr. Cameron Kaiser, a deputy public health officer for San Diego County, said it is difficult to know for sure what to make of the increase in detections of candida auris in the region. It could be that this particular strain is being found more often because health care providers are looking for it more often. And, it could be that other similar types of yeast were actually auris but testing didn’t differentiate them from their cousins.
“It’s entirely possible that it has been there all along, but we’re just starting to notice it more now,” Kaiser said.
He added that it is reasonable to assume that some who have been confirmed to have a candida auris infection died, but each would also have been battling other serious health problems.
The risk, he noted, is not confined to hospitals.
“It’s also going to be acute rehab facilities, it’s going to be long-term care, it’s going to be skilled nursing facilities, all of those places are also likely to have the kinds of people that candida auris would be a threat to,” Kaiser said.