Rise of super fungus also in Belgium “inevitable”

The deadly fungus ‘Candida auris’ is on the rise worldwide. Fourteen infections have been diagnosed in Belgium since 2016, six of which last year. The Healthcare Department is therefore making the fungus notifiable, Het Nieuwsblad wrote on Saturday.

Candida auris was only identified in humans for the first time in 2009, in the ear of a woman in Japan. Since then, the fungus has been on an unstoppable rise. There have already been outbreaks in hospitals in the US, Mexico and India and closer to us in the UK, Spain and Italy.

Countries that have so far been spared are also increasingly confronted with the fungus. Germany reported 77 cases last year, six times more than in previous years. The Flemish Healthcare Department warned hospitals in April last year to be vigilant. With good reason, as it now appears. “We had six reports in 2023, possibly seven. These are clearly more reports than in previous years,” says Professor Katrien Lagrou, who heads the national reference laboratory for fungal infections at UZ Leuven.

In the past, this only concerned imported infections, but in three more recent cases no link with a foreign hospital stay was found. “Then you know that it is here and will emerge more and more,” Lagrou says in the newspaper. The Department of Healthcare is introducing a reporting obligation and the Superior Health Council is working on advice. “A patient must immediately go into isolation. The rest of the department is screened. In the worst case, an entire department must be closed.”

That happens for a reason. Candida auris is also called a ‘super fungus’. It spreads easily, is resistant to most medications and if it enters the bloodstream it is extremely deadly, killing about one in three.

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