{"id":5803,"date":"2024-01-31T07:23:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T13:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5803"},"modified":"2024-01-31T07:25:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T13:25:27","slug":"first-known-outbreak-of-deadly-fungus-c-auris-confirmed-in-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/01\/31\/first-known-outbreak-of-deadly-fungus-c-auris-confirmed-in-wa\/","title":{"rendered":"First known outbreak of deadly fungus C. auris confirmed in WA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Seattle Times<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first known outbreak of a particular deadly fungus has hit Washington state, King County public health officials confirmed Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fungus, called Candida auris or C. auris, first emerged in the state in July, when a Pierce County resident tested positive for the fungus at Kindred Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital in Seattle, according to Public Health \u2013 Seattle & King County. No further cases were found at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month, another C. auris infection was confirmed in a patient who was recently admitted to Kindred, the public health agency said in a blog post<\/a>. The patient was tested through a state Department of Health screening program<\/a> that encourages early detection of multidrug resistant organisms, or organisms that can be resistant to treatment, like C. auris, the post said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than a week later, three other cases were confirmed at the hospital, all in patients who had tested negative for the fungus when they were first admitted \u2014 meaning the infection had started to spread in the state\u2019s first known C. auris outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public health officials said they were not yet sure of the initial source of the infection, adding that it \u201cmay never be identified.\u201d No further information about the patients was immediately available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublic Health continues to work together with Kindred to help limit spread,\u201d the post said. \u201cThis includes keeping patients who test positive for C. auris away from other patients to reduce risk of spread and using specific disinfecting cleaning products effective for C. auris.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kindred is in the process of notifying other facilities that received patients who were previously at Kindred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C. auris infections are considered an urgent public health threat, and spread at an \u201calarming\u201d rate during the coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last spring<\/a>. The fungus was first reported in the United States in 2016, and was responsible for a 200% jump in infections between 2019 and 2021, The New York Times reported last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire Bostrom-Smith, manager of King County\u2019s health care-associated infections program, said in the blog post that C. auris is particularly concerning because it is resistant to common antifungal medications. It can also spread in the body without the patient having any symptoms \u2014 a process called \u201ccolonization,\u201d Bostrom-Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 5% and 10% of patients \u201ccolonized\u201d with C. auris will eventually develop \u201cinvasive\u201d infections that can be serious, Bostrom-Smith added. More than 45% of people with invasive infections die within the first 30 days, Bostrom-Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those in long-term acute care facilities are generally most at risk, largely because they tend to be very ill and rely on devices like catheters or breathing tubes, Bostrom-Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, C. auris is not a threat to healthy people, according to the CDC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seattle Times The first known outbreak of a particular deadly fungus has hit Washington state, King County public health officials confirmed Tuesday. The fungus, called Candida auris or C. auris, first emerged in the state in July, when a Pierce County resident tested positive for the fungus at Kindred Hospital, a long-term acute care hospital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5805,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions\/5805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}