Candidozyma auris cases are rising in U.S. healthcare settings, but the drug-resistant fungus mainly threatens seriously ill patients rather than healthy people.
The drug-resistant fungus named Candidozyma auris is making headlines as infection rates tick upward in U.S. hospitals. It can survive on surfaces for weeks has now been reported in 23 U.S. states this year, with more than 3,000 clinical cases logged by mid-July.
Most people reading this are not currently at risk from it, but officials agree that it is time to raise awareness.
Where the cases are
Texas leads the 2026 counts with 706 cases as of July 18, followed by Michigan with 503 and Illinois with 366.
These are provisional figures that shift as states report, so the totals should be read as a snapshot rather than a final tally.
The longer trend is steeper. The CDC recorded 2,882 clinical cases nationwide in 2022, then 4,428 in 2023, and 6,304 in 2024.
Positive screening cultures roughly doubled over the same window, from about 6,000 to 12,000 between 2022 and 2024, according to Susan Huang, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine.
The rate is slowing
One detail from the CDC’s own tracking page rarely makes it into coverage of this pathogen.
Cases have risen every year since the first American case in 2016, but the rate of increase has been slowing since 2022.
That does not mean the problem is resolving, and it does not undo four consecutive years of growth. It does mean the curve is not accelerating the way the raw totals suggest.
Not a threat to the public
Every specialist quoted on this subject makes the same distinction, and it is not a reassurance so much as a description of how the organism behaves.
Most healthy people clear it on their own, and the fungus does not circulate in the community.
The people at risk are patients already dealing with serious illness in healthcare settings, particularly those with catheters, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, or intravenous lines, since those devices give the yeast a route into the body.
William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, described it as a growing problem among chronically ill people in nursing homes and hospitals rather than one affecting the general population.
Diabetes, blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, and any condition that weakens the immune system all raise the risk of severe illness.
Why this yeast is different
Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, said the organism does not behave like the Candida species clinicians usually encounter.
It is frequently multidrug-resistant, which makes some antifungals unreliable, and some strains now resist every class of drug normally used against fungal infections.
Echinocandins are the usual first-line treatment, and when a strain proves resistant, doctors sometimes turn to high doses of multiple antifungals at once.
It also persists in healthcare environments in a way that makes it hard to eradicate, surviving on surfaces for weeks and on patients’ skin for months after they have recovered.
Candidozyma auris has two names
The organism now carries two names, and the CDC uses both.
A 2024 taxonomic revision moved it into a separate genus as Candidozyma auris, reflecting genetic and biological differences from true Candida species.
Adoption has been uneven, and some researchers argue the change needs broader DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis behind it before it settles.
The practical consequence is a surveillance headache, since a pathogen filed under two names in different databases is harder to track consistently.
What facilities are asked to do
Infection control measures are the same whether a patient is infected or merely colonized.
Staff should wear gowns and gloves even when a carrier is not seriously ill, and the patient should be in a private room, Huang said.
Schaffner emphasized rigorous disinfection of the care environment, since the organism turns up on high-touch surfaces, along with identifying infected patients and isolating them.
Chin-Hong added clear signage outside a patient’s room, communication during transfers between facilities, and investment in laboratories that can identify the organism quickly, since older methods misidentify it.
What the death rate means
Researchers have estimated that between 30% and 60% of people with these infections have died, which is the figure that drives most headlines.
That range needs a caveat attached every time it appears, because many of those patients had other serious illnesses that independently raised their risk of dying.