Candida Auris: Deadly Fungus Found in Hospital Outbreak Isolated for the First Time in Nature

A deadly yeast that appears out of the blue in hospitals has just been isolated by researchers in nature.

For the first time, the Candida Auris, a deadly fungus, was found in the sandy beach and tidal swap ecosystem of a remote coastal wetland on two sites on the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Multi-Drug Resistant Fungus

Researchers published reports in the journal American Society of Microbiology entitled, "Environmental Isolation of Candida Auris from the Coastal Wetlands of Andaman Islands, India," suggests that C.Auris was an environmental fungus later identified as a human pathogen.

Christina Cuomo, who studies fungal pathogen at the Institute of MIT and Harvard explains that the origins of C. Auris were a great mystery after it appeared in patients and clinics. The study offers first clues on where else the deadly fungus can be found.

The discovery represents the first definitive evidence that the pathogen thrives in natural environments and isn't limited to mammalian hosts.

C.Auris causes infections resistant to major anti-fungal drugs, and since it was first identified in clinical patients about 10 years ago, scientists have sought out the origins of the deadly fungus.

The yeast has been declared as a public health threat for its ability to cause fatal infections. C Auris can spread between patients, especially to those already seriously ill, causing serious infections in the gut, bloodstream, and other organs.

As of January 19, the CDC reports more than 1,600 cases.

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The Candida Auris Ecological Niche

Anuradha Chowdhary PhD at the University of Delhi led the 'landmark discovery.' She and her colleagues studied 48 samples of soil and water collected from over 8 sites, including sandy beaches, rocky shores, mangrove swamps, and tidal marshes around the Andaman Islands, an isolated tropical archipelago in the Bay of Bengal. Samples were isolated from 2 sites: a bay tidal salt marsh, and a beach.

Chowdry explains that the isolates found in the areas where there was previous human activity were more related to strains seen in clinical settings. Adding that further studies are needed to explain the correlation. It may come from plants or shed from human skin which are known to be colonized by C. Auris.

Despite cases of C. Auris tracing back to the mid-1990s, the deadly fungus was only named in 2009. The study provides evidence for a hypothesis recently introduced by microbiologists in a new commentary.

Researchers propose that C.Auris which tolerates a wide range of temperatures and salinity is native to wetland environments. Its emergence as a pathogen in humans resulted from global warming effects in the said environments.

Chowdry, who has studied C. Auris for almost a decade says that the hypothesis inspired her to explore ecological niches where the fungus is suspected to thrive.

Chowdry adds that the study takes the first necessary steps towards understanding how pathogens survive in wetlands, and how future studies could reveal more about how fungus thrive in the wild.