
auris‐colonised patients and were investigated. All patients were or had been hospitalised at the COVID‐19 ICU, as well as their close contacts (defined as patients that were hospitalised at the same unit and attended by the same healthcare worker team) were considered potential C. The cross‐sectional investigation took place on December 16, 2020. The patient had spent 38 days at the COVID‐19 ICU, and after a negative nasopharyngeal PCR for SARS‐CoV‐2, was transferred to one of the three SICU. On December 2, 2020, the first Candida auris‐colonised patient was diagnosed at the hospital. In March 2020, when the SARS‐CoV‐2 pandemic began in Brazil, one of the three ICUs with 20 beds were allocated to patients with severe COVID‐19. The hospital has an additional 63 semi‐intensive care unit (SICU) and 201 ward beds. The hospital has three intensive care units (ICUs) with a total of 66 beds for critically ill patients. The outbreak took place in a 330‐bed hospital in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. auris in Brazil and the fungemia episodes that occurred after the investigation are described.


Details about the cross‐sectional investigation of the first outbreak of C. auris was not reported in Brazilīut recently we reported the first two patients that had been hospitalised due to severe COVID‐19.Īfter being notified by the local hospital infection control team (HICT), the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (NSSA) set in place a task force to map and control a possible outbreak.Īn intervention took place, including cohorting and collection of surveillance cultures of potential C. auris‐free hospitals now have this yeast among the leading agents of bloodstream infections.ĭuring the ongoing COVID‐19 pandemic, the overwhelmed intensive care units (ICUs) have been a fertile ground for the emergence and spread of C. auris to develop multidrug resistance have alarmed the medical and scientific communities. Outbreaks of hospital‐acquired infections and the potential of C.

In the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence and worldwide nosocomial spread of the new human opportunistic pathogen Candida auris.
