Worrisome fungal infections are on the rise, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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What is the human thermal barrier? As Arturo Casadevall, Johns Hopkins professor, describes in his new book, “Will the Fungi Win?” it is our normal body temperature, and it has been holding the majority of fungal infections in humans at bay, until now.

Casadevall: There is a fungus called Candida auris that came out of nowhere, not known to medicine till 2009. Then 2011 2012 2013 appears simultaneously in three continents and the isolates are not related. It's not like somebody carried in a plane from South America to South Africa. We have proposed that this is the first fungus that adapted and broke through the human thermal barrier.                    :26

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Candida auris causes severe, multidrug resistant infections that can spread easily among patients in healthcare facilities, and is most likely to infect those who may need ventilators, feeding tubes and other invasive devices. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.