Brazil reports its first case of Candida auris infection. What is the historical and social impact of this disease?

Russian Satellite News Agency reported on the 9th that Brazil’s National Health Supervision Agency (ANVISA) recently reported that the country has discovered the first suspected case of infection with the dangerous drug-resistant fungus Candida auris. This rare case Fungi can cause drug-resistant infections and even death.

The fungus was reportedly detected in a sample from the end of a catheter from a patient in the adult intensive care unit of Bahia Hospital. Brazilian health authorities say experts are concerned that some strains of Candida auris are resistant to three main types of antifungal drugs. This fungus can cause invasive infections, including bloodstream infections, with complications that can be fatal.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health has established a working group to study the infection and recommends that all health departments strengthen laboratory testing for this fungus. Candida auris was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and has been detected in five continents around the world. The first case of the fungus appeared in the UK in 2013. In 2019, an outbreak of the fungus occurred in a British hospital, causing 200 infections and 8 deaths. The first case of Candida auris in the United States occurred in 2016. ?

Candida auris can cause symptomatic infection or can be carried in the body without symptoms. Candida auris infection mainly affects hospitalized cases. High-risk groups are patients with severe chronic underlying diseases or immunosuppression (such as diabetes, chronic kidney disease, HIV infection, tumors, etc.); newborns, patients with intubation or indwelling catheters, and surgical patients And patients taking systemic antibiotics or antifungals with broad spectrum antibiotics can also become infected. Healthy people usually do not become infected with Candida auris. Symptoms caused by Candida auris depend on the location of the infection, including bloodstream infections, wound infections, and ear infections. Among them, bloodstream infections are the most serious, with a fatality rate of up to 30-40%.

At present, the fungus is mainly resistant to fluconazole, but the resistance to other antifungal drugs varies among different strains; currently, strains resistant to three major types of antifungal drugs have emerged. Most cases of Candida auris infection can be treated with echinocandin antifungal drugs. For cases of multidrug-resistant Candida auris infection, high-dose combinations of multiple antifungal drugs can be used.