Candida auris (C. auris)—an emerging fungus considered an urgent antimicrobial resistance (AR) threat—is on the rise in the United States. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, C. auris spread at an alarming rate in U.S. healthcare facilities from 2020 to 2021. In fact, the number of cases resistant to echinocandins in 2021 was about three times that in each of the previous two years.
According to the CDC’s 2022 Special Report: COVID-19 U.S. Impact on AR, there were 171 clinical cases in 2017, 329 cases in 2018, and 466 cases in 2019. In 2020, there were 754 cases—representing a 60-percent increase. The CDC has categorized C. auris as an “urgent” pathogen based on the level of concern to human health.