Candida auris

Candida auris is the entity WHO's new fungal Blueprint singles out as the archetype of the problem: a hospital-associated yeast that shrugs off first-line antifungal drugs and keeps spreading through wards that assume fungal infection is somebody else's problem. It sits on WHO's fungal priority pathogens list in the critical group, the same tier reserved for the pathogens health authorities worry about most.

First identified in 2009 in a patient in Japan, Candida auris has since turned up in hospitals and long-term care settings worldwide. It spreads person-to-person and via contaminated surfaces and equipment, and it can persist on hard hospital surfaces for extended periods, which is unusual for a fungus and a large part of why it is so hard to clear from a ward once introduced. Many strains resist the azole antifungals used as first-line treatment, and some resist multiple drug classes at once, narrowing options for clinicians treating vulnerable patients.

Outbreaks tend to cluster in intensive care units and among patients with weakened immune systems, invasive devices, or long hospital stays, and standard laboratory tests frequently misidentify it as a related, less dangerous species. That diagnostic blind spot, combined with surveillance systems built around bacterial resistance rather than fungal disease, is precisely the gap WHO's new Blueprint is trying to close.