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A fungus that has been described as a “urgent threat” by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is spreading rapidly across the country. The fungus, Candida auris, or C. auris, has especially become an issue in Georgia, according to the state’s health department.
JoAnna Wagner of the Georgia Department of Public Health stated that, as of the end of February, the state overall has seen over 1,300 cases of Candida auris (C. auris). “Many of the disinfectants that are EPA-registered and historically used by hospitals and medical facilities are not effective against C. auris,” Wagner told WJCL News.
“The fungus will just keep getting bigger and bigger, obstruct certain parts of the lungs, and can cause secondary pneumonia. Eventually, it can go on to kill people,” said Dr. Timothy Connelly at Memorial Health in Savannah, adding, “If a person develops an infection in their blood, they’re very difficult to treat.”
Researchers wrote in a study published this month in the American Journal of Infection Control, “The volumes of clinical cultures with C. auris have rapidly increased, accompanied by an expansion in the sources of infection.”
The CDC reports, “There were 4,514 new clinical cases of C. auris in the United States in 2023. “C. auris can be multidrug-resistant and can cause life-threatening illness. It spreads easily in healthcare facilities and mostly affects people who are already very sick,” the CDC stated.
CDC
“This particular organism is extremely transmissible and has a very high mortality rate,” University of Mississippi Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lisa Didion said in 2023.
In 2024, it was reported that climate change is partially to blame for the proliferation of Candida auris (C. auris). These fungi are learning to adapt and evolve to heat, meaning that they are getting better at being able to survive in humans with a body temperature of 98.6 degrees.
“This is a worrisome scenario,” said Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, “As the world gets warmer, the microbes are either gonna have to adapt or to die. And we know that they’re very adaptable.”
As of the latest reports, Candida auris (C. auris) has now been found in 38 different states. New York, Illinois, California, Florida, Nevada, and Texas had been the most affected, based on numbers from 2016 to 2023, but with Georgia already having reported over 1,300 cases in 2025, compared to just 219 total from 2016 to 2023, there is obvious cause for concern in other states as well.