Nationwide Outbreak of Candida auris Infections Driven by COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Israel, 2021–2022

  • Roni Biran
  • , Regev Cohen
  • , Talya Finn
  • , Tal Brosh-Nissimov
  • , Galia Rahav
  • , Dafna Yahav
  • , Sharon Amit
  • , Yael Shachor-Meyouhas
  • , Alaa Atamna
  • , Jihad Bishara
  • , Liat Ashkenazi-Hoffnung
  • , Haim Ben Zvi
  • , Mirit Hershman-Sarafov
  • , Shlomo Maayan
  • , Yasmin Maor
  • , Orna Schwartz
  • , Oren Zimhony
  • , Jonathan Lellouche
  • , Meital Elbaz
  • , Ela Burdelova
  • Naama Mizrahi, Anna Novikov, Oryan Henig, Ronen Ben-Ami

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    28 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    We report an outbreak of Candida auris across multiple healthcare facilities in Israel. For the period of May 2014–May 2022, a total of 209 patients with C. auris infection or colonization were identified. The C. auris incidence rate increased 30-fold in 2021 (p = 0.00015), corresponding in time with surges of COVID-19–related hospitalization. Multilocus sequence typing revealed hospital-level outbreaks with distinct clones. A clade III clone, imported into Israel in 2016, accounted for 48.8% of typed isolates after January 2021 and was more frequently resistant to fluconazole (100% vs. 63%; p = 0.00017) and voriconazole (74% vs. 5.2%; p<0.0001) than were non–clade III isolates. A total of 23% of patients had COVID-19, and 78% received mechanical ventilation. At the hospital level, outbreaks initially involved mechanically ventilated patients in specialized COVID-19 units and then spread sequentially to ventilated non–COVID-19 patients and nonventilated patients.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1302-1311
    Number of pages10
    JournalEmerging Infectious Diseases
    Volume29
    Issue number7
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Jul 2023

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Epidemiology
    • Microbiology (medical)
    • Infectious Diseases

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