Deadly new fungal superbug is worrying doctors — here's what you need to know

Months after health officials in New York, New Jersey and Illinois raised concerns about a new deadly fungal superbug, a study has suggested climate change may be playing a role in its troubling rise.

“Candida auris fungus” (C. auris) is a multi-drug–resistant fungal infection that spreads in hospitals and is extremely deadly — killing as many as one in three who get it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While there are likely many reasons that the infection has now spread to 30 countries, authors of the study — published this week in the journal mBio — are blaming climate change. The researchers say global warming has played a “pivotal role” in the infection’s rise, citing the fungus’s ability to “grow at higher temperatures.”

“What this study suggests is this is the beginning of fungi adapting to higher temperatures, and we are going to have more and more problems as the century goes on,” Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology chair at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said. “Global warming will lead to selection of fungal lineages that are more thermally tolerant.”

As scientists continue to unpack what’s fueling the rise of this infection, here’s what those who are vulnerable to it need to know.

12 PHOTOSThreats the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have responded toSee GalleryThreats the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have responded toBarbara Smith, a registered nurse with Mount Sinai Medical Health Systems, St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals in New York, demonstrates putting on personal protective equipment (PPE) during an Ebola educational session for healthcare workers at the Jacob Javits Convention center in New York, October 21, 2014. Thousands of healthcare workers representing dozens of clinical and non-clinical positions attended the session that featured experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other area infection control experts to provide training and information on caring for potential Ebola patients. REUTERS/Mike Segar(UNITED STATES – Tags: HEALTH DISASTER)A Chipotle restaurant is shown in Federal Way, Washington November 20, 2015. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that three additional states reported E. coli infections from the same strain as the Chipotle Mexican Grill outbreak, sending shares in the chain down more than 12 percent.REUTERS/David RyderA deer mouse in a sawdust, pine needle, and bird feather habitat is seen in this handout photo obtained by Reuters, July 6, 2017. The deer mice are the principal reservoir of Sin Nombre (SN) virus, the primary etiologic agent of hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) in North America, a relatively-new acute respiratory illness. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.The cruise ship Balmoral is prepared prior to boarding of passengers going on the Titanic Memorial Cruise in Southampton, England April 8, 2012. An outbreak of the norovirus stomach bug has sickened 160 people aboard a Fred Olsen Cruise Lines ship docked at Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. health officials and the company said on Friday. The norovirus outbreak took place aboard the Britain-based line’s Balmoral during a transatlantic cruise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File PhotoA scientist holds a container filled with blood to feed aedes aegypti mosquitoes at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan, March 6, 2016. Picture taken March 6, 2016. REUTERS/Alvin Baez A deer tick, or blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, is seen on a blade of grass, in this undated picture from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Scientists have discovered a new bacteria species causing Lyme disease in the U.S. Midwest, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday, adding to the medical literature on the tick-borne disease. REUTERS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Handout via Reuters THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNSNEW YORK – 1958:In this handout from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the skin of a patient after three days of measles infection is seen at a New York hospital in 1958.Measles outbreaks have been reported throughout the U.S., with the latest reported February 5, 2015 at a daycare in suburban Chicago where as many as five children under the age of one have been infected. (Photo by CDC via Getty Images)NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 24: Bio Recovery Corporation employees hand over potentially contaminated materials to the CDC outside of 546 West 147th Street October 24, 2014 in New York City. After returning to New York City from Guinea, where he was working with Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola patients, Dr. Craig Spencer was quarantined after showing symptoms consistent with the virus. Spencer was taken to Bellevue hospital to undergo testing where he was officially diagnosed with the Ebola virus on October 23rd. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)MIAMI BEACH, FL – SEPTEMBER 13:A Florida Department of Health worker packages up a urine sample to be tested for the Zika virus as they provide people with a free Zika virus test at a temporary clinic setup at the Miami Beach Police Department on September 13, 2016 in Miami Beach, Florida. According to the CDC, 64 locally transmitted cases of the Zika virus have been discovered in Florida.(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)FILE PHOTO: A Centers for Disease Control (CDC) scientist measures the amount of H7N9 avian flu virus which was grown and harvested in an unnamed CDC laboratory in 2013. James Gathany/CDC/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY.Colonies of E. coli bacteria grown on a Hektoen enteric (HE) agar plate are seen in a microscopic image courtesy of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).U.S. health officials on May 26, 2016 reported the first case in the country of a patient with E. coli bacteria carrying the mcr-1 gene, an infection resistant to all known antibiotics.CDC/Handout via REUTERSTPX IMAGES OF THE DAY FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTYThe Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS) is shown in this undated handout photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, August 1, 2014. The ABCS is a portable, tent-like device installed in a modified Gulfstream III (G-III) aircraft, providing ameans to perform emergency movement of exposed or contagious CDC personnel from the field, or site of exposure, to a facility that can provide appropriate medical care without risk to passengers or air crew, according to the CDC.The ABCS was designed and built by the Department of Defense (DoD), Phoenix Air Group (PAG), and CDC.REUTERS/CDC/Handout via Reuters(UNITED STATES – Tags: HEALTH DISASTER SOCIETY) FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTSUp Next

See Gallery

The infection started in Japan.

C. auris was initially discovered in a Japanese man with an ear infection in 2009. It first appeared in the U.S. in 2013, specifically in a series of patients at a New Jersey hospital. Since then, the CDC has tracked over 700 cases nationwide.

Symptoms are difficult to pinpoint.

According to a CDC fact sheet, the fungus can cause “blood stream infections” and is often spread in hospitals and between nursing home patients. Symptoms are contingent on which part of the body has become infected with the illness, but can include chills and fever. A laboratory test is needed to confirm that it is C. auris that’s present, at which point treatment (often with multiple anti-fungal medications) begins.

Hospital patients and the elderly are most at risk.

Like other drug-resistant infections such as C.difficle, C. auris poses the most risk to individuals whose immune systems are already compromised — such as those in the hospital, elderly people and those who use breathing tubes. The CDC notes that “healthy people usually don’t get C. auris infections.”

New York has the highest cases, likely due to travel.

In an email to Yahoo Lifestyle, Michael Phillips, MD, chief epidemiologists and associate professor of infectious diseases at NYU Langone Health, says that C. auris is “following the same pattern” as another drug-resistant bacteria, one which started in New York and then spread nationwide. “This is likely due to travel to and from the NYC area,” he says.

It may not technically be a “superbug.”

The Mayo Clinic defines superbugs as “strains of bacteria that are resistant to the majority of antibiotics commonly used today,” but although many have been referring to C. auris as one, Phillips doesn’t necessarily agree. “In spite of the hype, I would not call C auris a superbug,” says Phillips. His reasoning, in part, is that not all C. auris infections are resistant to drugs.

There is no need to panic.

In an editorial for the Harvard Medical School in May, Robert H. Shmerling, MD, noted that while C. auris is a dangerous infection, panic among the general population is not warranted. “Fortunately, Candida auris has not spread to wide swaths of the population, and healthy people rarely develop the infection,” he writes. “When it comes to infectious disease, it’s never time to panic. Instead, you can take constructive steps to deal with concerns about a wide array of infections, even the deadliest ones.” A great way to start, he says, is regularly washing your hands, receiving all your vaccinations and avoiding people who are contagious.

20 PHOTOSBest Hospitals: 2018-2019See GalleryBest Hospitals: 2018-2019