And man infected with various multi-resistant bacteria and the Candida auris fungus died in Milan. As far as we know, the patient he had arrived from Greece and had been admitted to the Sacco hospital of the Lombard capital for a stroke. From the laboratory tests to which he was subjected, several positivities were found, including precisely that of «Candida auris». The man died on Friday morning.
The man had entered the hospital a few days ago. Having come from Greece, he would not have gotten infected in Italy, but would have the case profile imported. «Candida auris» is a mushroom described for the first time in 2009, after having been isolated in Japan from a woman’s ear (hence why «auris»).
In Italy the first case of invasive C. auris infection was identified in 2019, followed by an outbreak that affected the northern regions in the 2020-2021 pandemic period, reads the Epicentro website of the Higher Institute of Health (ISS). Since 2019, both imported and indigenous cases have been described or notified, for a total of about 300 cases – Epicentro still reports – in an epidemic outbreak that mainly involved Liguria and Emilia Romagna. For example, Candida auris is spreading significantly in the United States, where the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have defined it as an “urgent threat” due to its antibiotic resistance. In the pandemic years of 2020-2021, infections increased dramatically in US healthcare facilitiesaccording to data published in the Annals of Internal Medicine: in 2021, in particular, the cases resistant to the most recommended drug used for the treatment of Candida auris infections, the echinocandins, tripled. Nationally, clinical cases in the United States increased from 476 in 2019 to 1,471 in 2021. Screening cases tripled from 2020 to 2021, for a total of 4,041.