The US states most affected by the deadly Candida auris fungus have been revealed in an interactive map on DailyMail.com.
It shows how the microscopic yeast strain, also known as C auris, has been detected in more than half of the US states since it first appeared in the US in 2016.
The highest counts are in the country’s major coastal cities. New York state is hardest hit, with 1,325 cases since 2016, followed by Illinois with 1,044 cases and California with 813 cases.
Next up is Florida, which had 683 cases, New Jersey (419) and Nevada (408), according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2013 and 2022.
It comes after health officials issued a warning about C auris on Monday, noting that the hospital infection had tripled in recent years and had become resistant to multiple drugs.
C auris infections have been growing rapidly recently, with cases in the US increasing from 1,310 in 2020 to 4,041 in 2021. Last year there were 5,754 cases.
The CDC does not keep track of how many people have died from cowries, and it can be difficult to know if patients died from the fungus, since it usually infects people who are already very sick.
CDC data shows that fungal infections caused 7,000 deaths in 2021 in the US and 1.5 million worldwide.
The states most affected are those with the largest number of hospitals, the breeding ground for C. auris.
The fungus does not form germ tubes and is rarely detected in the natural environment.
Most transmission occurs in health care settings, especially among residents of long-term care facilities or among people with indwelling devices or mechanical ventilators.
Healthy people rarely get sick, but among the frail and vulnerable, it kills up to 60 percent.
People contract C auris by touching an infected person. C auris can also be transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces or equipment, where it can survive for weeks.
C auris is a strain of microscopic yeast, which has now been detected in more than half of the US states.
Most C. auris transmission occurs in health care settings, especially among residents of long-term care facilities or among people with indwelling devices or mechanical ventilators.
Cowries can also live on the skin or other parts of the body, such as the ear or wounds, without causing an active infection and making you sick.
But in some patients, the fungus can enter the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, resulting in life-threatening invasive C. auris infections, such as in the blood or internal organs.
This usually occurs when a medical device is inserted into the skin or gastrointestinal tract, such as a catheter or IV line.
The fungus kills more than one in three people with invasive C. auris.
C auris emerged over a decade ago in hospitals in India, South Africa and South America simultaneously. The researchers don’t know why, but they speculate that climate change might have played a role.
Fungi generally cannot tolerate the warmer temperatures of the human body, but scientists believe that C. auris may have adapted to survive in a warmer climate.
The spreading fungus is eerily similar to HBO’s hit show ‘The Last of Us,’ where a real-life cordyceps fungus evolved due to global warming to infect people, control their minds, and turn them into bloodthirsty zombies that they see vines explode from their bodies and infect others.
Three years after the fungus was first reported in the US, the fungus was given their maximum level of concern by the CDC. Because it is often multi-resistant, it is easily transmitted in healthcare settings and can cause serious infections with high mortality rates.
Cases have more than tripled in the US between 2020 and 2021, and multidrug-resistant strains have also become more common. Six states reported their first case of C. auris in 2022.
The map shows how 36 states have reported cases of the fungus since it was detected in the US in 2016.
Last year, Louisiana, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Delaware and Hawaii reported their first cases of cowrie.
Many of the first cases of C. auris in the US were imported from abroad, but most cases in recent years have been due to local transmission.
Three states — Oregon, Minnesota, and Michigan — reported their first case of the fungus in 2021.
Meanwhile, areas with previous cases but limited spread, such as California, Texas and Florida, have seen new and increasing transmission in recent years.
The main symptoms of the fungus are fever and chills that do not improve. The fungus can cause many different types of infections, such as in the bloodstream, wounds, or ears.
Transmission has been largely driven by a lack of infection prevention and control practices in hospitals.
Cases of the antibiotic-resistant fungus echinocandin have also increased: in 2021 there were about three times as many cases as in each of the previous two years.
The antifungal drug echinocandin is the first line of treatment given to treat C. auris.
The World Health Organization has warned that fungal infections are becoming a “great threat” to public health.
