Got a Horrifying Foreign Superbug? You May Have More Than One
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Got a horrifying foreign superbug? You may have more than one
The sad tale of a US resident who fell ill while traveling abroad has prompted an ominous warning from health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-that is, that the most horrifying, highly drug-resistant infections known to health experts tend to travel in packs.
The patient who prompted the warning was traveling in Kenya in the late summer of 2018 when a cerebral hemorrhage struck. The brain bleed landed the traveler in a hospital there for a month, during which time doctors performed a variety of procedures. Those included placing a feeding tube and inserting a breathing tube into the neck. The patient encountered several complications during the treatments, including sepsis, pneumonia, and a urinary tract infection, requiring courses of potent antibiotic and anti-fungal medications.
In September, the severely ill patient was medically evacuated to an acute-care hospital in Maryland. There, doctors found that the patient had become infected with several of the most dreaded multi-drug-resistant bacteria. These include oxacillinase-48-like-producing carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae and the New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase-producing carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Both germs are notoriously difficult to treat and can be deadly.
The patient was put in a private room with contact precautions to keep the germs contained. But in consultation with infectious-disease experts at the CDC, doctors decided to investigate further. They tested for yet another dastardly pathogen: the fungus Candida auris.
[...] Still, the case offers a cautionary tale, the CDC experts say. In a report released Thursday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, they write:
This case highlights the importance of a high level of suspicion for C. auris in persons admitted to US health care facilities with a history of health care abroad, even if C. auris is not known to be widespread in that location.
Co-colonization with C. auris and other frightening pathogens appears common, they add. And early identification of C. auris is critical to keeping it from spreading further.
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