0000000000241175
AUTHOR
Juan V Mulet Bayona
Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in Candidaemia, Invasive Aspergillosis and Antifungal Consumption in a Tertiary Hospital
In addition to the increase in fungal infections that has been observed in the last few decades, it has been reported that severe clinical COVID-19 can increase the risk of invasive fungal infections. The main objective of this study was to evaluate if there had been an increase in candidaemia and invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) cases since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Data were retrospectively collected from April 2019 to March 2021, from patients admitted to Consorcio Hospital General Universitario de Valencia (Spain). A total of 152 candidaemia cases (56 of which were due to Candida auris) and 108 possible IPA cases were detected. A great increase in candidaemia cases was…
Evaluation of a novel chromogenic medium for Candida spp. identification and comparison with CHROMagar™ Candida for the detection of Candida auris in surveillance samples.
Abstract A shift to Candida non-albicans infections has been noted during the last years, and the emergence of multi-resistant Candida auris has complicated their management. The aim of this study was first to compare the performance of the novel chromogenic medium CHROMagar™ Candida Plus (CHROMagar, France) with CHROMagar™ Candida (Becton Dickinson, Germany) for the presumptive identification of Candida species; and then, to evaluate its utility in the detection of C. auris in surveillance samples. CHROMagar™ Candida Plus showed a good performance compared with the reference medium CHROMagar™ Candida. Sensitivity and specificity were 100% in both media for tested species at 48 h of incubat…
Characteristics and Management of Candidaemia Episodes in an Established Candida auris Outbreak
The multi-resistant yeast Candida auris has become a global public health threat because of its ease to persist and spread in clinical environments, especially in intensive care units. One of the most severe manifestations of invasive candidiasis is candidaemia, whose epidemiology has evolved to more resistant non-albicansCandida species, such as C. auris. It is crucial to establish infection control policies in order to control an outbreak due to nosocomial pathogens, including the implementation of screening colonisation studies. We describe here our experience in managing a C. auris outbreak lasting more than two and a half years which, despite our efforts in establishing control measure…
Validation and implementation of a commercial real-time PCR assay for direct detection of Candida auris from surveillance samples.
Background Rapid and reliable laboratory methods are required for detecting the nosocomial yeast Candida auris. AurisID® (Olm Diagnostics, England) is a real-time PCR assay approved for detecting C. auris in fungal cultures as well as directly from blood samples, involving a nucleic acid extraction as a prior step. Objectives The purpose of this study is to validate the AurisID® kit for direct detection of C. auris from surveillance samples without prior DNA extraction and to analyze the results of implementing this methodology to our daily laboratory routine protocol for C. auris surveillance studies. Methods Our PCR method using the AurisID® kit was compared with our routine protocol, con…
Candida auris: descripción de un brote
Resumen Candida auris es una levadura multirresistente emergente que causa infecciones invasivas graves y brotes con una alta mortalidad. El control de C . auris es un reto. Laboratorios, clinicos e instituciones sanitarias deben trabajar conjuntamente para mejorar la identificacion y el tratamiento de la infeccion, asi como el control de la transmision. Esta revision describe los aspectos generales de la biologia, diagnostico y tratamiento de C. auris, al igual que las recomendaciones publicadas recientemente por un grupo de expertos. Tambien se presenta la experiencia de un brote de C. auris en el Consorcio Hospital General Universitario de Valencia desde septiembre de 2017 hasta agosto d…