04 avril 2023
It worries hospitals around the world. Candida Auris was the subject of a recent alert by the American health authorities. Resistant to treatment and difficult to identify, it has multiplied in recent years in American healthcare establishments and can be fatal in the most vulnerable people.
He was nicknamed “the hospital killer”. The US Centers for Disease Surveillance and Prevention (CDC) has classified the Candida Auris as “an urgent threat” for public health, in a press release published on March 20.
C. Ear was discovered in the ear canal of a patient hospitalized in a Japanese hospital in 2009. Since then, it has been spreading at an alarming rate in hospital settings – with the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and India leading the way, according to the High public health council (HCSP). Present on 5 continents, only 6 cases have been identified in France, according to the HCSP (2019).
Most often benign in healthy people, the germ is responsible for nosocomial fungal infections that can be fatal in the most fragile. “People who are very ill, equipped with a medical device or who make repeated or prolonged stays in health establishments present a high risk of being contaminated by C. Auris”notes the CDC in its press release.
Observed for the first time in 2016 in the United States, this fungus, a species of yeast, has since spread like wildfire. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of clinical cases increased from 476 to 1,471. As of December 31, 2021, 3,270 cases of contamination with infection were detected, 7,413 cases without infection. The CDC finds that the number of cases continued to increase significantly in 2022.
Why the C. Ear is it disturbing?
What particularly worries the health authorities is the great resistance of the C. Ear available antifungal treatments. It is also difficult to identify and can slip through the cracks if the laboratory does not have specific technology. Already at the origin of several epidemics in health establishments, it is nevertheless essential to be able to detect it quickly in carrier patients.
The symptoms caused by C. Ear depend on the area of contamination. They can be cutaneous, during superficial infections in particular. Some patients also have a flu-like state, accompanied by fever and chills. In immunocompromised individuals, symptoms of C. Ear can be much more serious during invasive infections (blood, urinary tract, bone, meninges, etc.).
The HCSP points to the severity of the fungus in vulnerable people: “Invasive infections are associated with a high fatality rate, essentially attributable to the numerous comorbidities observed in infected or colonized patients. »
How is C. Auris transmitted?
« The White ears is transmitted mainly by direct contact with the contaminated hands of a carrier or infected person, with those of nursing staff or by indirect contact with contaminated surfaces and objects.explains the Quebec government on its website.
Treatments are antifungal drugs, but some C. Ear are resistant to all available remedies. Thus screening appears essential in the fight once morest the fungus. Identifying carriers upstream, especially in the hospital, will help counter its spread and the infections it causes.
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Source : The High Council for Public Health, the American Center for Disease Surveillance and Prevention, the Quebec Ministry of Health
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Written by : Dorothée Duchemin – Edited by: Vincent Roche
