Nearly one-third of patients in Maryland hospitals were colonized with Acinetobacter baumannii and Candida auris, two pathogens that are becoming growing infection-threats in hospital settings.
The Maryland Multi-Drug Resistant Organism Prevention Collaborative analyzed cultures obtained from 482 patients in the state who were receiving mechanical ventilation in acute care and long-term care settings between March 8 and June 7.
From the cultures, experts found that 30.7% were colonized with A. baumannii and 6.6% with C. auris. Both pathogens were also more commonly found in long-term care facilities as opposed to acute care facilities.
"Patients receiving mechanical ventilation in long-term care facilities are a high-risk population for emerging pathogens, and surveillance and prevention efforts should be targeted to these facilities," researchers wrote of their findings.
Both pathogens have limited data available for proactive surveillance to be conducted, the report points out. The CDC has only been formally tracking C. auris since around 2013, and A. baumannii is not tracked. However, the agency does rank both in the highest category for being "urgent" antibiotic-resistant threats.