Just when you thought things couldn't get any better on the global health landscape, along comes one of those pesky drug-resistant superbug fungi.
An outbreak of such a "superbug" has spread among patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities in Texas and Washington, D.C., according to CBS News. The 30 day mortality rate for the outbreaks, combined, was 30% the report said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late last week that the Candida auris fungus preys on people with weak immune systems and that cases were the result of person-to-person transmission.
The cases in Texas and Washington, D.C. appear to be unrelated to one another.
Candida auris was first discovered in 2013 and is "resistant to multiple anti-fungal drugs that we have, and it's also resistant to all the things that we use to eradicate bacteria and fungal strains in the hospital," according to internal medicine specialist Dr. Neeta Ogden.
101 cases have been identified in Washington D.C. between January and April 2021. Three cases "were isolated as being resistant to all three major classes of anti-fungal medications", CBS reported.
In Texas, 22 cases were identified over the same period, with two cases "being resistant to all three anti-fungal medications, and five resistant to two of the medications".
Dr. Meghan Lyman of the CDC said: "This is really the first time we've started seeing clustering of resistance."
People with breathing tubes, feeding tubes or central venous catheters appear to be the most at risk to catch the superbug, the CDC said. The superbug has been reported in hospitals and long-term care facilities around the world.
The CDC report concluded: "Surveillance, public health reporting, and infection control measures are critical to containing further spread."
There's been no word on whether or not locking down the entire country and economy, along with double, triple and quadruple masking, are options. We'll wait to hear from Dr. Fauci on that.
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