‘Japanese fungus’ spreads through hospital wards

A “JAPANESE fungus” that is resistant to drugs has spread to at least 55 hospitals across the UK, public health officials have warned.

NHS trusts have been ordered to carry out deep cleans of all affected areas after more than 200 patients were found to be infected or carrying the potentially fatal pathogen.

The fungus has been likened to a “superbug” because it has already proved resistant to the main three classes of drug treatment.

Healthy patients can usually fend off the fungus. It is those with compromised immune systems who are most likely to contract a bloodstream infection, which can prove fatal or cause major disabilities such as hearing loss.

Guidance from Public Health England (PHE) warns that, as of last month, 20 separate NHS trusts and independent hospitals have detected more than 200 cases of patients colonised or infected with Candida auris. More than 35 hospitals have identified patients found to be carrying the fungus after transfer from elsewhere, officials state.

The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in London has been the worst affected, with the first and largest outbreak in Europe. High numbers of cases have also been seen at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, officials said, with all three outbreaks declared over. Officials said that so far, surveillance efforts have not established any deaths as a result of the infection.

The PHE guidance says the hospitals with significant outbreaks have not shown an attributable rise in death rates but these exercises did not provide comparable data on normal mortality rates.

Hospitals and nursing homes have now been ordered to isolate any affected patients, and to carry out deep cleans of infected areas. Prof Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said such outbreaks were a major challenge for hospitals.

“The kind of patient that gets infected by this will normally already be immunosuppressed – whether that is because of chemotherapy, tumours, or deliberately suppressed for medical reasons,” he said.

“Meanwhile the invasive procedures in use in critical care settings – such as intubation – add to infection risks.”