Washington health officials investigate first case of drug-resistant fungus in Pierce County man

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CDC on guard over deadly fungus spreading throughout the U.S.

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Washington health officials said they were investigating the first case of Candida auris, or C. auris, diagnosed in the state. 

A Pierce County man was diagnosed with colonization due to the multidrug-resistant fungus on July 13. 

The man tested positive at Kindred Hospital Seattle–First Hill during an admission screening.

Before that, he had been a patient at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma for approximately six weeks. 

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Candida auris is a yeast responsible for many infections. Resistant to most antifungal drugs, this fungus causes deaths worldwide.  (BSIP/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

He suffers from multiple comorbidities and has not recently traveled out of state.

The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said this is believed to be the first locally acquired case in Washington.

The Washington State Department of Health issued a health alert about this case on Tuesday. 

"Screening for contagious diseases helps healthcare and public health find infections early to help limit spread. It is a critical step to protect the public," Nigel Turner, Division Director for Communicable Disease Control, said in a statement. "We prepare for this and other diseases to make sure we and our healthcare partners can respond quickly and effectively."

The director of the National Reference Centre for Invasive Fungus Infections, Oliver Kurzai, holding in his hands a petri dish containing the yeast candida auris in a laboratory of Wuerzburg University in Wuerzburg, Germany, on January 23, 2018.  (Photo by Nicolas Armer/picture alliance via Getty Images)

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The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is working with the State Department of Health, Public Health Seattle-King County, Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Kindred Hospitals to investigate.  

"We will provide testing for other patients who may have been exposed. This patient will remain isolated while he continues to receive care," it said in a release Tuesday. 

C. auris is a type of yeast that can cause severe illness, especially in those suffering from serious medical conditions who have spent time in hospitals.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.  (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Patients who are colonized can carry and spread C. auris even if it is not making them sick.

From 2013 through last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 5,654 infections of C. auris across the country, including in western states.

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The agency says that the risk of C. auris infection to otherwise healthy people, including healthcare personnel, is extremely low.

The fungus can cause serious infections in the blood and wounds. More than one in three patients with C. auris infection dies.