Deadly Fungus Spreading Across The Globe Undetected

A newly detected fungus called Candida Auris which is mysterious and deadly is spreading across the globe.

In-Detail :-

• The germ, #CandidaAuris infects patients with a weak immune system.
• In the last five years, the fungus has been detected in hospitals of Venezuela, Spain, India, Pakistan, and South Africa.
• Lately, it has reached New York and New Jersey.
• The Federal Centre for Disease Control and Prevention added the germ to its deemed list of “urgent threats.”

What Is The Threat?

• Doctors have found that though a patient infected by the fungus had died, C. Auris did not.
• Even scarier is its persistence to live in a hospital setting.
• It is resistant to major anti-fungal medications.
• This adds to the threat of rising drug-resistant microbes.

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Antibiotics Overuse :-

• Health experts have been warning for many years now that overuse of antibiotics and antifungal medicines is leading to drug resistance in deadly microbes.
• The usage of these is also high among farm animals, and antifungals are used extensively in agriculture.
• This rampant usage of antifungals in agriculture is leading to antifungal resistance such as in C. Auris.

Keeping Infections Secret :-

• As most of the drug-resistant or fungal resistant infections are seen in hospitals, the hospital authorities and local governments are keeping the infections secret away from public scrutiny.
• They do not want to be seen as hubs for such infections.
• This is doing more harm than good as such infections are under reported and the threat perception gets lowered leading to non-finding of a solution.

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Threat To #India :-

• India is burdened with overuse of antibiotics due to over-the-counter availability such medicines.
• The anti-microbial resistance in India is growing steadily.
• Already, a drug resistance microbe was named after the capital city – New Delhi Metallo-Beta-Lactamase.
• Also, the country is burdened with drug-resistant Tuberculosis.
• The discovery of new fungus is another cause for worry for the country.
• Restricting the usage of OTC Antibiotics and reduced usage of anti-fungal chemicals in agriculture will need to be undertaken by the government in order to restrict forming such new strains in the future.
• Research needs to be undertaken to develop new medicines for these drug-resistant microbes.