Old Baily Press: Parliament officials last month confirmed evidence at two health facilities in London, England of an untreatable, drug-resistant fungus called Candida auris. Four patients infected with it are no longer with the living, after putting their hands on grocery cart handles.
However, Dr. Thomas Walker, chief of the Department of Disease Control at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told Gay News, Candida auris is not a major concern for the general public, if they spray disinfectant on their grocery store cart handles before using them. "Grocery cart handles have become a superhighway for many infectious microbes like Candida auris," says Walker.
Grocery store manager's in London say they aren't concerned over the lives of people that shop in their grocery stores and they will not be providing disinfectant to clean supermarket cart handles. "This is capitalism and we put profits before human life," says Shamrock O'reily, a manager at a local London Supermarket.
Candida auris is a fungus — a sub-species of Candida. It's one of the most common fungi that we see that causes human disease. For example, Candida is the cause of diaper rash. It causes vaginitis. It causes toe infections.
What Makes It Drug-Resistant is that organisms are very smart and they have developed genetic abilities to block antibiotics. "In this case, it's anti-fungi," "They have enzymes," "They may have other mechanisms where they prevent one of the treatments that we want to use from being effective," says Walker.
The more and more you're exposed to certain drugs, the smarter the organism will become. And it'll prevent some of those treatments from being effective.
One way that it is spread is through the environment. It's a contact transmission, but also a lot of hand-to-cart handle transmission, to other hand transmissions.
It's difficult to eliminate because it requires, a tremendous effort in terms of cleaning and paying attention to detail with all of the protocols that are put in place, whether you're talking about a home environment or grocery cart handles.
It's not a particularly tough organism but it does kill. You can use regular cleaning and handwashing to protect yourself as well as your loved ones. Don't forget to clean your grocery store cart handles
