Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus, is spreading again: What to know

Cases of Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus with a reported 30-60% mortality rate in previous studies, are on the rise again in the U.S.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the notoriously hard-to-treat yeast has been reported in 27 states so far this year. 

What is Candida auris? 

Big picture view:

The fungus, Candida auris, is a form of yeast that is usually not harmful to healthy people but can be a deadly risk to fragile hospital and nursing home patients. Some strains are so-called superbugs that are resistant to all three classes of antibiotic drugs used to treat fungal infections.

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What they're saying:

Dr. Keith Kantor, clinical director at ReGen Therapeutics in Atlanta, said it typically lives on the skin, "but it found a great hiding place inside the hair follicles."

"If you're not basically already sick or autoimmune-compromised, you won't even know that you have it," Kantor said. "But if you are, it could show up in things like sepsis, shock or organ failure. And that's when it goes from the hair follicle into the bloodstream.

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"It's interesting: it changes the outside of its body, the yeast fungus, and it tricks the autoimmune system to think that it's a virus instead of a fungus," Kantor explained. "So the autoimmune system sends anti-viral things there instead of anti-fungal things. That weakens the anti-fungal defense and it makes it spread more, sort of like a chameleon." 

Candida auris cases

By the numbers:

According to the CDC, 3,437 confirmed cases of Candida auris have been reported in 27 states as of July 25. In 2025, there were 4,290 cases reported for the entire year.

Local perspective:

States with the most cases include California, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Oklahoma, Michigan, Illinois and Arizona. 

Origins of Candida auris

The backstory:

It was first identified in Japan in 2009 and has since been seen in more and more countries. The first U.S. case occurred in 2013, but it was not reported until 2016. That year, U.S. health officials reported 53 cases. 

Cases have continued to shoot up since then. Doctors have also detected the fungus on the skin of thousands of other patients, making them a transmission risk to others.

In a small group of patients in the United States, its mortality rate was estimated at 30% to 60%, according to the CDC, and many of those patients had other underlying conditions. Candida auris is a particular risk in healthcare settings for people already with serious medical problems.

Why you should care:

Wherever and however it originated, the fungus poses a significant threat to human health, researchers say. Immunocompromised patients in hospitals are most at risk, but so are people in long-term care centers and nursing homes, which generally have less access to diagnostics and infection control experts.

How is Candida auris treated? 

Candida auris is especially hard to treat, Kantor said. It’s nearly always resistant to the most common class of antifungal medication, and is sometimes also resistant to another medication primarily used for severe catheter fungal infections in hospitals.

"What they're trying now is a combination of drugs," Kantor said. "So instead of using one antifungal drug, they'll use a combination of three or even four of them to get it. But that's the problem. It's sort of like the same thing with antibiotic resistance. It's the exact same idea and it just makes it much harder to deal with."

How is Candida auris diagnosed? 

Dig deeper:

Candida auris is not only challenging to treat, but also difficult to diagnose. It is quite rare and many clinicians are not aware it exists.

The fungus is diagnosed with a blood test, but experts say the test misses about half the cases. There is newer technology available for diagnosing Candida auris, but it’s expensive and not widely available in hospitals.

Does Candida auris cause hair loss? 

Kantor said the fungus "doesn't really cause hair loss," but "it basically stops the hair from growing for a while while you have it." 

"And once you get rid of it, you may have some hair shedding, but it shouldn't cause permanent hair loss at this time. There's no research to show that."

Candida auris prevention

Kantor said the best way to prevent Candida auris is to "stay healthy and stay out of the hospital."

"Normal washing of the hair won't do anything … they don't even know how it spreads," he said. "They just know at this point that it spreads in places where the people are vulnerable and have compromised immune systems, like hospitals and old age homes and things like that."

Still, Kantor said there’s no need to worry unless you have a weakened immune system and are already in a hospital or elderly care facility. 

"That's where you might be a little nervous about it," he said. 

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