Abstract
This paper highlights the key steps undertaken by a national public health agency, working in close collaboration with academic partners and experienced healthcare professionals, in developing a response to the rapid emergence of a novel nosocomial pathogen. It details the key activities in national incident management team formation, surveillance activities, epidemiological investigations, laboratory developments, scientific advances, and collaborative activities. It discusses commonalities that can be adapted for dealing with the emergence of future new pathogens.
Highlights
Candida auris is a rapidly emerging global pathogen with five distinct clades characterised across separate continents over the past ascribed to the geographical region from which they were first described—South American, South African, South Asian, East Asian and a putative Iranian clade [1]
It is highly likely that additional bacteria, fungi or other nosocomial pathogens will emerge due to selection pressures such as climate change, increasing patient immunosuppression, broad-spectrum antibiotic use and unknown factors that will influence new antimicrobial resistance profiles or new pathogens
C. auris was first identified in England in 2013, with significant numbers detected through 2015 and into 2016 [4]
Summary
Candida auris is a rapidly emerging global pathogen with five distinct clades characterised across separate continents over the past ascribed to the geographical region from which they were first described—South American, South African, South Asian, East Asian and a putative Iranian clade [1]. It has brought significant challenges to the infection control world as the first fungal agent to cause large, difficult to control nosocomial outbreaks [2]. There continue to be global reports of prolonged hospital outbreaks, and year-on-year new countries report cases of infection for the first time. There has been significant progress made in raising awareness, developing hospital surveillance policies, developing organism culture, identification, and speciation laboratory methods and learning from international best practice [3]. It is highly likely that additional bacteria, fungi or other nosocomial pathogens will emerge due to selection pressures such as climate change, increasing patient immunosuppression, broad-spectrum antibiotic use and unknown factors that will influence new antimicrobial resistance profiles or new pathogens. We will highlight the various multimodal research and development tools that national public health agencies will need to employ to be able to combat novel healthcare-associated infections, highlighting throughout the English experience of tackling C. auris
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