The Wikipedia article is perhaps more helpful than the news story.
Fungi are much closer to animals in evolutionary terms than bacteria. Many substances which effectively kill fungi are harmful to animals, including humans. Antibacterial antibiotics are mostly useless. There exist antifungal antibiotics, but their selection is limited. Vaccination is possible, but not yet feasible in people. A mouse has been successfully vaccinated against Candida auris and gained some protection.
Fungal diseases are generally slower compared to viral (very fast) and bacterial (fast) diseases, but harder to wipe out.
This fungus is generally a threat in hospitals, where people with compromised immune systems and open wounds may be encountered. A description of a Candida outbreak in a medical setting can be found here. It broke out in the intensive care unit of a London hospital. Many patients had wounds, catheters or intravenous lines. They resorted to isolating every patient, disinfecting rooms with agressive substances, using plentiful chrorhexidine to prevent infection via wounds and lines, and antifungals to treat patients.
Nobody died at the Royal Brompton Hospital, but the mess was severe. Candidasis of the blood (typically after entry through a wound) has a high level of mortality. Whether it is a case fatality ratio or infection fatality ratio - no idea. With new diseases, one typically learns the CFR first and IFR much later, except in hospitals where you can test every person.
Next year, the US CDC described it as a “catastrophic threat”. Antifungals that target Candida with less side effects, and a vaccine against it, are highly sought after. I trust they will be found, but not soon - this is not COVID, it spreads slowly, so everyone isn’t running (yet) to put a lid on it.
The hypothesis about how it crossed to humans, is summarized by this picture. Wetlands -> thermotolerance -> birds -> agricultural setting -> humans -> hospital setting. I’m not sure if this guess is correct, but it has explanatory value.
Apparently it was capable of crossing species barriers anyway, because it’s a generic sort of decomposer fungus - it needs nothing highly specific, and breaks down a variety of biomolecules for food. What is notable: it gained resistance to antifungals before entering people. Probably through agricultural use.
Interesting speculation but wish there was a bit more information in the article. For anyone interested, this particular species of candida is considered highly dangerous because it is resistant to most of the antifungal medications we currently use
but thats stated
“It’s a potentially multi-drug resistant pathogen with the ability to spread very efficiently in healthcare settings,” he said. “We’ve never had a pathogen like this in the fungal infection area.” It is nearly always resistant to the most common class of antifungal medication, and is sometimes also resistant to another medication primarily used for severe catheter fungal infections in hospitals.
Apologies, I meant that I wanted to know how they came to the conclusion that climate could be affecting the prevalence. I’m not denying their claim, just curious what evidence they have.
I may have missed your quoted section because I opened the link on mobile and couldn’t stand how disruptive the page was without ad block.
A shit you made me read it again too and they also say that
“I think the way to think about how global warming is putting selection pressure on microbes is to think about how many more really hot days we are experiencing,” said Casadevall of Johns Hopkins. “Each day at (100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37.7 degrees Celsius) provides a selection event for all microbes affected — and the more days when high temperatures are experienced, the greater probability that some will adapt and survive.”
Idk, not a scientist. Seems like one of those complex chain reaction things, not a question of direct evidence for a single causing factor. Most of that stuff prefers warm temperatures and humid environments. Water from floods for example is full of delicious food for all kinds of organisms that can harm us. Also possible that the warming and seasonal weather extremes will speed up their evolution and make them generally stronger. Then combine that with the growing antibiotic resistance, and even weak and lame stuff like legionella will very soon be a greater danger.
