They detect an all-drug resistant superbug in Texas and Washington. There are already three dead

By Mike Stobbe - The Associated Press

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English) confirmed this Thursday that it had evidence that a superbug, an intractable fungus, spread in two hospitals in Dallas, Texas, and in a nursing home in Washington, DC between January and April.

At least 133 patients developed invasive, drug-resistant fungal infections.

Of them, three died.

Both outbreaks are ongoing and additional infections have been identified since April.

"This is really the first time we've started to see a resistance cluster" in which patients seem to get the infections from each other, explained Dr. Meghan Lyman of the CDC.

Getty Images

The fungus, called

Candida auris,

is a harmful form of yeast that is considered dangerous for hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems.

It can be fatal when it comes in contact with the bloodstream, heart, or brain. 

Outbreaks in healthcare facilities have occurred when the fungus has spread through contact with patients or on contaminated surfaces.

Health authorities have been sounding alarms for years about the superbug after seeing infections in which commonly used drugs had little effect. 

[COVID-19 infections have increased more than 100% in 22 states in the last two weeks]

In 2019, doctors diagnosed three cases in New York that were also resistant to a class of drugs, called echinocandins, that were considered a last line of defense.

In those cases, there was no evidence that the infections had spread from patient to patient: the scientists concluded that drug resistance formed during treatment.

The new cases eventually spread, the CDC concluded.

First case of black fungus derived from COVID-19 reported in Mexico

June 4, 202100: 58

In Washington, DC, 101 people were diagnosed with

Candida auris

in a nursing home for critically ill patients, three of them resistant to all three types of antifungal drugs. 

 In two Dallas medical centers, 22 cases were detected in two hospitals, of which two with the same level of resistance. 

[Are people forgetting about COVID-19?

A doctor clarifies the danger of the delta variant]

The researchers reviewed medical records and found no evidence of prior antifungal use among patients in those groups.

Health officials say that means they are spread from person to person.