MIRROR
A deadly drug-resistant fungus that kills more than half of those it infects is spreading at an alarming rate, experts say. The ‘Last of Us’ – named after the popular zombie TV series – is spreading rapidly through the United States. The bug is so serious that it has now been recognised as a global health threat.
According to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Candida auris, the rare and dangerous fungal infection, has a mortality rate estimated at 30 per cent to 60 per cent. Initially detected in New York, it has since spread to 29 States.
Worryingly, cases have doubled in Europe, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The symptoms can be severe, including fever, sepsis, as well as low blood pressure. But it is difficult to diagnose, leading to delayed treatment.
Dr Luis Ostrosky, an infectious disease expert from McGovern Medical School, call it “kind of our nightmare scenario”. He said: “It’s a potentially multi-drug resistant pathogen with the ability to spread very efficiently in healthcare settings. We’ve never had a pathogen like this in the fungal infection area.”
Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist from Johns Hopkins University, US, added: “We have tremendous protection against environmental fungi because of our temperature. However, if the world is getting warmer and the fungi begin to adapt to higher temperatures as well, some … are going to reach what I call the temperature barrier.”
