Texas has now reported 160 cases of a
deadly fungus over just the last year.
The CDC is monitoring the rise of this
fungal infection, but it's impot
to know that health healthy peoe
usually don't get sick from thi.
The biggest risk is to people wo
have underlying health conditio,
are and are in healthcare facils
or perhaps long term care facilities.
This is a serious issue.
So joining us this afternoon tok
more about this is Doctor Phill.
Wrong. The director of Dallas Cy
Health and Human Services, Doctor Wong,
thanks so much for being here with us.
Thank you.
Can we start off by pronouncing?
I've heard this both ways,
Candida or Candida Auris, how do you,
how do you pronounce this?
I've always learned that Candida oris,
OK. So Candida oris,
we will go with that today if pe
hear about this and and they probably
will because it's been in the n,
it is a serious thing.
But we keep hearing that healthy
people don't usually get sick.
Can you kind of walk us through why that is?
Uh, sure. You know, as you point out it,
it's really people who are have underlying
health conditions and are very .
You know, they might have
invasive sort of medical device,
catheters or things and have be,
you know, in healthcare facilits
for long periods of time or
frequently in those settings.
Those are the situations where
people really are most at risk.
How big of a threat is something
like this though, Doctor Wong,
when we talk about healthy peope
usually not getting sick? I mea,
that's a great thing if you're healthy,
but I suppose that the downsideo
that is you could have this and
not know it and be around someoe
who is much more vulnerable.
Is that an issue?
You know again it's I think the biggest
risk is for people who are in those high
risk settings in hospitals, nursing homes,
it can be carried on you know,
person skin without causing infection
and can be spread to others.
But then those that again that are most
vulnerable to the serious infecs
and and severe complications and death
are those that are you know that have
underlying illnesses and are very sick
in the healthcare community right now.
How big of a priority.
Would you say this is just
because you know from,
from the things I've read about this,
once it gets into some of these
facilities where you have a lotf
vulnerable patients in particular it,
it can just spread like wildfir.
So I guess how vigilant are our
healthcare professionals being
told to be about this right now
to try to identify this in the
very early stages if it does
enter one of those facilities?
Sure. Well it is very importanto
address it because also I mean they're
multi typically multidrug resis.
So it's hard to treat and as you
said you know it can cause realy
severe infections and those thae
vulnerable and it is easily spr.
So you know so the infection col
practices in those healthcare settings
are really important to try to prevent
that spread and try to do everyg
to protect those vulnerable per.
Doctor Wong, I was doing some reading on this
and and what what makes this a particular.
Problem is that this fungus is resistant
to some of the medications that we have
right now to fight these sorts of things.
Does this help to sort of jumpst
that effort to to start findingw
treatments and looking for new treatments?
Especially as you have something like
this that is is spreading in different
parts of the country and and doesn't have
a great medicine in place perhaps that
might be able to stop it in its tracks?
I certainly that's one you know
aspect of of dealing with this,
but then also the infection conl
and preventing preventing that spread
and making sure that there is ad
and meticulous infection control
to prevent those and protect the
people in those healthcare sett.
But a good take away here as Dor
Wong saying here that this doest
typically affect most healthy pe
and again those populations thae
more at risk like in nursing hos
and so forth are certainly much more.
Vulnerable to this doctor,
Phillip Wong, the director of Ds
County Health and Human Service.
Thank you, as always,
for taking the time and and shag
the expertise and the pronuncian
in this case, because again,
we've heard it both ways there.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.