Recently a fungus called Candida auris, resistant to multiple antifungal treatments, emerged globally. It is related to the family that causes thrush, Candida albicans, but behaves differently, usually infecting or colonizing patients in intensive care facilities.
This organism is now colonizing patients on a ward in Oxford, the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Little information exists on the transmission of C. auris or effective strategies on how to interrupt its spread. Environmental screening by the infection control team, microbiologists and staff on the ward has not identified a source of the organism.
We wish to investigate cases with acquisition of C. auris located on the Neurosciences ICU and other areas of the hospital. We will compare patients with C. auris with control patients also admitted to the same ICU. We will investigate how patients acquire C. auris and what their outcomes are. We will detect risk factors for asymptomatic colonization and symptomatic infection. These risk factors may suggest new interventions to stop transmission and new cases.
See publication: A Candida auris Outbreak and Its Control in an Intensive Care Setting