Researchers studied one of the largest outbreaks of Candida auris, a fungal pathogen, to date and presented their findings at 28th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, from April 21 to April 24 in Madrid, Spain.
As of August 2017, the outbreak, which took place in the United Kingdom, had infected more than 200 patients since it began in 2013.
For the current study, researchers studied 70 patients in a neurosciences intensive care unit at Oxford University Hospitals who were colonized or infected with C. auris. Ninety-four percent of the patients had been admitted to the ICU before being diagnosed. Most of the patients had been colonized for one to two months.
The study showed multiuse patient monitoring equipment, such as axillary thermometers, were a major source for the spreading of the C. auris fungus. Eighty-six percent of the ICU patients who were eventually diagnosed with C. auris had been exposed to axillary thermometers, which are used to measure temperature in the armpit. The researchers were able to match the fungus found on the equipment to those in patient samples.
"Despite a bundle of infection control interventions, the outbreak was only controlled following removal of the temperature probes," said Dr. David Eyre of the University of Oxford and presenting author.
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