“We need to act now to better understand, contain and stop the spread of this drug-resistant fungus,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. “This is an emerging threat, and we need to protect vulnerable patients and others.”
Identifying the fungus is difficult and requires special laboratory methods because it’s so similar to other bugs. Most of the samples in the new report were initially misidentified as other fungal species, the CDC said.
Treating the fungus is even harder; 71% of the fungal samples were resistant to current drugs. Samples of the fungus in other countries have been resistant to all three major classes of anti-fungal medicines.
Hospitalized patients are at especially high risk from the fungus, because many have taken antibiotics, which can kill off healthy bacteria that help protect us from disease, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“It’s a warning or wake up against the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, especially in hospital settings,” Hotez said.
Hospitals have been testing for the fungus more frequently due to outbreaks in Asia and the United Kingdom, said Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.