Deadly Candida auris infections on the rise in Indiana and Illinois

(NEXSTAR) – A drug-resistant and deadly fungal infection has been on the rise in parts of Illinois and Indiana, with cases in Indiana so far this year nearly doubling the total of cases in 2024.

The number of Candida auris infections reported to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention this year has nearly tripled in the past three and a half months as health care providers struggle to contain the fungus.

At the end of April, the CDC had recorded 1,052 Candida auris cases. By Aug. 9, the last week of available data, the total number of cases had grown to 2,809 cases across 21 states, surpassing the number of cases we saw at this time last year.

Some of the biggest spread was in the Midwest, where cases in a handful of states more than doubled since April. Illinois reported 362 cases, Michigan reported 342, Ohio had 291, and Indiana had 164.

In 2024, Illinois saw 443 cases, while Indiana only had 85 cases for the year, according to the CDC. Currently, there are no active cases in Indiana or Illinois, but the two-state area has reached 45 cases in the last 52 weeks, as of August 9.

Candida auris, also called C. auris, was first identified in the U.S. fewer than 10 years ago. Since then, the number of cases has increased every year. The CDC has considered the fungus “an urgent antimicrobial resistance threat” because it has developed ways to defeat the drugs that are designed to kill it.

In the past three months, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee recorded their first cases, joining 17 other states that were already tracking the fungus’s spread in 2025.

Of the roughly 2,800 cases reported so far this year, about a quarter (or 727 cases) were in Texas alone.

Candida auris can be hard or impossible to treat because antifungal medications aren’t effective.

“If you get infected with this pathogen that’s resistant to any treatment, there’s no treatment we can give you to help combat it. You’re all on your own,” Melissa Nolan, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina, told Nexstar.

People with a healthy immune system may be able to fight off infection on their own, but the fungus mainly spreads in health care settings, where people are sick and vulnerable.

The fungus can survive on surfaces, like countertops, doorknobs, or even people’s skin, for a long time before spreading to vulnerable patients. People with catheters, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and PICC lines are at the highest risk because the pathogen can enter the body through these types of devices.

A study published last month, which looked at patients with Candida auris primarily in Nevada and Florida, found that more than half of patients required admission to the intensive care unit and more than one-third needed mechanical ventilation. More than half of the patients, whose average age was between 60 and 64, also needed a blood transfusion.

In the past, the CDC estimated that “based on information from a limited number of patients, 30–60% of people with C. auris infections have died. However, many of these people had other serious illnesses that also increased their risk of death.”