Kansas City, MO - A fungus with a resistance to drugs has been slowly making it's way across the globe and into the United States.
Candida Auris is a species of fungus that does not respond well to anti-fungal agents. A lot of people use the term yeast infection to describe problems with different types of candida, and C. auris infections are especially serious. There have been close to 600 cases of C. auris infections in the U.S., though none of those have been reported in the Kansas City area.
Super bugs that begin overseas, like C. auris, tend to enter the U.S. along the coasts. It has been reported in New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
"Our microbiology staff is trained to identify things that look out of the ordinary," said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease physician at the University of Kansas Health System. "We're able to have a protocol to go about identifying to see if this is a certain isolate that we're looking for, certain organisms such as this candida auris."
There is reason to be concerned, even through C. auris is not yet in our immediate neighborhood.
"They're only a car trip or an airplane ride away from bringing those types of infections to our area," Hawkinson said. "It's only inevitable that at some point, around here, that we would likely see that infection."
The most common symptoms are a fever and chills that do not get better with medication. Once C. auris takes hold, it can enter the bloodstream and cause problems like sepsis.
People with compromised immune systems are most vulnerable to infection. Most C. auris infections occur with patients who are already sick, including people with cancer, intensive care patients and elderly people in nursing homes.