Candida auris “is unfortunately an ugly beast. It is increasing significantly all over the world, including Italy, and with Covid the growth has become impressive. We must raise the bar. It is essential to monitor, avoiding committing the mistakes of the past”. This was underlined by Matteo Bassetti, director of the infectious diseases clinic of the San Martino polyclinic in Genoa, commenting to beraking latest news Salute on the alarm raised by the US CDC for the growing spread of infections from this fungus.
“Like Sita, the Italian Society of Anti-infective Therapy – he continues – we are doing this: we have a surveillance system and a register of these infections”. What is worrying, explains Bassetti, is the fact that “Candida auris is resistant to many first-level anti-fungal drugs, infections can be very serious up to septicemia and mortality is quite high, from 30-40% up to 50%. %. The increase in infections is unfortunately the result of a relaxation of infection control measures during the Covid-19 pandemic, when people thought more about protecting themselves from the virus and there was less attention to this microorganism which we really need to pay close attention to.”
“Multi-resistant infections are not caused only by bacteria – recalls the infectious disease specialist – but also by fungi. We must also do more at the Italian level on the issue of the fight against resistant microorganisms, we still need to raise the bar further. I know that on this Minister Schillaci is a very sensitive topic. We must all work together, the fight against drug-resistant microorganisms is the current and future challenge”.