CDC Reports Over 3,000 Candida Auris Infections Across 27 States This Year

Fungal infections are becoming harder to treat in hospitals across the country.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this summer that more than 3,000 people had been infected with Candida auris in 27 states during the current year. The World Health Organization has classified the yeast as a highest-priority fungal threat. Dr. Tom Chiller, who previously led the CDC's fungal diseases branch, said the situation in some states has become permanent. "In some U.S. states, it's just endemic now. It's there to stay," Chiller said.

The spread of dangerous fungi is accelerating as the planet warms. Dr. Andrej Spec, a fungal-disease specialist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said rising temperatures and changing weather patterns are helping fungi survive in places they could not before. "We are creating an environment that is favoring pathogenic fungi and drug resistance," Spec said. He added that fungi are becoming better at infecting people and evading medical treatments.

The medical tools used to save lives are also creating openings for infections. Millions of Americans take drugs that suppress their immune systems to manage conditions like multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. The U.S. population of immunocompromised people is estimated at no fewer than 7 million. Invasive devices, such as heart-lung machines and ventilators, can also provide pathways for fungi to enter the body. "We're making all this medical progress," said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, "but that progress comes at a cost."

Medical professionals are reporting a change in who gets sick. Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, an infectious-disease specialist at UTHealth Houston, said his facility treated one patient every few months a decade ago. "Now, we have several cases per day in Houston," Ostrosky-Zeichner said. He noted that infections now appear in younger and healthier people. Spec said he treated a woman with diabetes who was otherwise healthy for a vaginal yeast infection caused by Candida auris this year.

Ryan Zwick, a 22-year-old nursing school graduate, contracted a severe case after COVID-19 damaged his heart in December 2023. He spent a week in an intensive-care unit in Las Vegas before doctors airlifted him to a hospital in San Diego. A heart-lung machine kept him alive, but the yeast entered his bloodstream through tubes in his chest. "It got into my bloodstream and kept causing a lot of issues throughout my body," Zwick said.

Zwick was discharged in April 2024, but he returned to the emergency room weeks later after blisters appeared at his incision site. Doctors diagnosed him with osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone. More than two years later, Zwick works as a nurse in New Hampshire and receives weekly infusions of antifungal drugs. His doctors have told him he will likely need the treatments for life.

The CDC said in October that cases of a different mold, which attacks the brain, increased fourfold in the past two years. Spec said this mold causes brain abscesses that are fatal in up to 70% of cases. He published a report in 2021 about a mold that previously infected only trees; two more people in the U.S. have since been infected.

The number of fungal species on Earth is estimated at 6 million, but only about 300 cause disease in people. Casadevall said the human body usually stays too hot for fungi to grow. As global temperatures rise, fungi are adapting to survive at higher heat. Candida auris, which likely came from marine ecosystems, can now live at 107°F.