A fungus dangerous, highly contagious and spreads very easily. so is the Candida auris, the new headache in the US that everyone is talking about right now. And, of course, having a series like The Last of Us so recently, even expert doctors have had to come to the fore to talk about the HBO Max series and what is similar (and what is not) between Cordyceps and C auris…
The Last of Us, a dystopia not so improbable (in part)
The story of The Last of Us presents us with a post-apocalyptic future in which part of humanity has been infected by a fungus called Cordyceps. In the video game, it originated from crops in South America -from there it passed to the people of the area and reached others through export-, while in the TV series that we have been enjoying on the HBO Max platform , the focus was placed on Jakarta (Indonesia), specifically on a flour factory, being their way of reaching the rest of the planet also through imports.
In all cases, the pandemic resulted in infected people who become a kind of zombie, capable of infecting others just by biting or wounding them and that can evolve and transform into a terrifying creature.
That a fungus turns us into something like this is at least fanciful and improbable -although it is capable of doing it in its own way in certain insects, beware-; however, cordyceps exists, fungi are highly contagious and it is not the first time that the voice has been raised warning that we should not stop paying attention to how they are and how they evolve.
Candida auris, the fungus that is attacking people in the US
It is never a good time for a fungus to start infecting people, but of course having such a recent TV series is not exactly the most favorable scenario to keep the population calm. And it is that in the hospitals of the USA the candida auris fungus or simply C. auris, capable of being found on the skin as well as on other parts of the body and with high resistance also when found on other surfaces. Such is the case that a 95% increase in the last 2 years of infection (people with symptoms, of whom a third die) and 209% in “colonized” (people who carry the fungus but asymptomatic).
“By its nature, it has an extreme ability to survive on surfaces. […] It can colonize walls, cables, bedding, chairs. We clean everything with bleach and ultraviolet light, ”says epidemiologist Dr. Waleed Javaid to NBC. Of course, the doctor also sends a reassuring message so that people do not panic after the great popularity of the HBO Max fiction: «We do not want the people who saw The Last of Us think that we are all going to die. This is an infection that occurs in extremely sick people who are usually affected by many other problems.
What has been said: it is a serious problem that they must solve in the US to protect people with weaker immune systems, but it does not mean that you should already prepare the backpack with the survival kit. At least for now…
