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More than 20 additional Candida auris (also called C. auris) cases have been reported in the US in the past two months since our last update in May.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday, the clinical case tally is now at 98 from nine states–New York (68), New Jersey (20), Illinois (4) and one each in Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts and Oklahoma.

The case counts displayed reflect clinical cases of C. auris (i.e., based on specimens collected in the normal course of care). They do not include patients who screened for presence of C. auris colonization. C. auris has been isolated from an additional 110 patients from healthcare facilities in 3 states where clinical cases were detected.

C. auris can be very problematic as some strains of  are resistant to all three major classes of antifungal drugs. This type of multidrug resistance has not been seen before in other species of Candida. In addition, C. auris can persist on surfaces in healthcare environments and spread between patients in healthcare facilities.

It was first described in 2009 after being isolated from external ear discharge of a patient in Japan. Since the 2009 report, C. auris infections, specifically fungemia, have been reported from South Korea, India, South Africa, and Kuwait. Although published reports are not available, C. auris has also been identified in Colombia, Venezuela, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.

Image/CDC (cropped)
Image/CDC (cropped)