Multi-drug Resistant Superbug “C. auris” Discovered On Andaman Islands Can Potentially Stir Up Another Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is not even over yet. As a matter of fact, new COVID-19 cases have been rising daily in many states lately. Amidst all this, researchers have detected traces of a superbug on isolated coastlines of the nation which could possibly activate the next deadly outbreak.
Clear proof of Candida auris, a multi-drug resistant fungus, has been identified in what researchers are naming as a ‘landmark discovery’. This fungus is also called superbug since it is capable of resisting major anti-fungal therapeutics. This research was issued in mBio, the journal on Tuesday. The report stated that the COVID-19 outbreak has provided the ideal conditions for the widespread pandemic of C. auris.
A group supervised by Dr. Anuradha Chowdary from Delhi University assessed 48 water and soil samples retrieved from 8 natural spots in the Andaman Islands, Bay of Bengal.
The team then extracted C. auris from two locations. These were – a beach with many people visiting and an isolated salt marsh wetland.
Live Science reported that the discovered C. auris beach isolates were more closely associated with the strains found in hospitals compared with those seen
in the marsh and were all multidrug-resistant in nature.The scientist detected that C. auris strains extracted from the salt marsh were not multi-drug resistant and multiplied at a slower rate at relatively high temperatures in comparison to the other strains. This indicated that the strain could possibly be a wild-type isolate of the superbug.
Dr. Arturo Casadevall, Department of Molecular Microbiology &Immunology Chair, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore reported that the strain may be the one that is still taking time to acclimatize with animal & human body temperatures. Nonetheless, the research wasn’t able to demonstrate that the superbug sustained naturally within islands or that it had emerged from there. It is a chance that the superbug could have been translocated to the islands by humans particularly at the beach location as it is frequently visited by people.
WHO described that C. auris lives in the skin prior to entering the body via wounds. Once it reaches the bloodstream, it results in severe illness and can cause sepsis- a condition that causes death to 11 million people annually around the world. CDC (Center for Disease Control & Prevention) has claimed that the superbug can result in severe bloodstream diseases. It additionally stated that the superbug can particularly infect individuals who need breathing tubes, feeding tubes, or catheters.
Live Science declared that this disease can be hard to cure since the fungi if mostly resistant to many antifungal medicines, and it can even stay on environmental surfaces.
Multi-drug resistant superbug, Superbug From Andaman Islands, Candida auris
