NYC 'Superbug' Outbreak Getting Worse: New Cases Reported At These City Hospitals

NEW YORK, NY — A frightening report released Friday by federal health officials shows that Candida auris, the deadly and drug-resistant "superbug" that's been plaguing New York City and (to a much lesser extent) several other U.S. metro areas for the past year, is now spreading between patients at NYC hospitals faster than ever.

State health officials describe the bug as "a fungal infection that has become increasingly resistant to treatments and can cause severe illness in patients with serious underlying medical conditions." Symptoms reportedly include chills and fevers, and oftentimes pain or pus in the ear.

Of 75 cases reported in the U.S. since April of last year, 52 appeared in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

The New York State Department of Health's patient count through May 17 — which includes at least two at hospitals further upstate — is even higher, at 57. Of those, 20 have died, according to a department spokesman. ("But," the spokesman said via email, "all patients had serious underlying medical conditions and it is difficult to attribute any deaths specifically to C. auris.")

In April of this year, NYC saw 12 new cases, according to the CDC — more than in any month before that.

The state Department of Health, which oversees NYC's hospitals, blamed this surge in part on the department's own "aggressive actions to expand surveillance and testing for Candida auris," and in part on "the high number of international travelers entering the state."

Here are the 19 NYC hospitals (and one Hudson Valley hospital, and one upstate hospital) where people are coming down with the disease, according to state health officials:

• Brooklyn Hospital (Fort Greene/Downtown Brooklyn)

• Coney Island Hospital (Gravesend/Coney Island, Brooklyn)

• Flushing Hospital Medical Center (Flushing, Queens)

• Henry J. Carter Specialty Hospital and Nursing Facility (East Harlem, Manhattan)

• Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center (Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn)

• Maimonides Medical Center (Borough Park, Brooklyn)

• Montefiore Hospital - Moses Campus (Norwood, The Bronx)

• Mt. Sinai Beth Israel (Gramercy/Stuy-Town, Manhattan)

• Mt. Sinai Brooklyn (Flatlands/Midwood, Brooklyn)

• Mt. Sinai Hospital (Upper East Side, Manhattan)

• NewYork-Presbyterian - Brooklyn Methodist Hospital (Park Slope, Brooklyn)

• NewYork-Presbyterian – Columbia (Washington Heights, Manhattan)

• NewYork-Presbyterian – Queens (Flushing, Queens)

• NewYork-Presbyterian – Weill Cornell (Lenox Hill/Upper East Side, Manhattan)

• NYU Lutheran (Sunset Park, Brooklyn)

• NYU Medical Center (Murray Hill, Manhattan)

• Private medical office in Queens

• St. John’s Episcopal Hospital (Far Rockaway, Queens)

• Queens Hospital Center (Jamaica, Queens)

• Westchester Medical Center (Valhalla, New York)

• Rochester General Hospital (Rochester, New York)

In a phone interview, Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the Department of Health, said he could not specify the number of cases reported at each of the above facilities "because of confidentially concerns." He refused to elaborate on whose privacy, exactly, the department is trying to protect by withholding this information.

[Update: In the time since Patch first posted this story, the Department of Health has clarified that Candida auris case counts per hospital are being withheld to safeguard patients' personal information, which is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.]

The spread of the disease may have been much worse at a smaller handful of hospitals on the list: According to the new CDC report, federal investigators tracked the outbreaks back to a key pool of "long-term care facilities and acute care hospitals within a limited geographic area."

Asked to specify which facilities were included in this pool, DOH spokesman Hammond said CDC officials would be the ones to do so, as they're the ones who mentioned it in their report.

CDC spokeswoman Brittany Behm contradicted this claim. She said in an email that New York state health officials would in fact be the ones in charge of providing any info on local patients and hospitals.

The CDC's new report also lends new insight into the origins and nature of the disease. Data showed:

• The average patient was 70 years old.

• The youngest patient was 21 years old, and the oldest was 96.

• "Nearly all patients had multiple underlying medical conditions and extensive health care facility exposure." Oftentimes, patients had been in intensive care for long periods of time; had a central venous catheter placed in a large vein; and/or previously received antibiotics or antifungal medications.

• Most of the affected facilities were providing "mechanical ventilation" to patients.

• The genetic profile of the fungus in almost all the NYC cases was "highly similar," and matches a strain in South Asia.

• The fungus took different forms in other locations. Cases in New Jersey were also similar to cases in South Asia, but altered slightly from cases in New York. And in Illinois cases, the strain was similar to one detected in South America.

• "These data," the CDC says, "suggest multiple introductions of C. auris into the United States followed by local transmission."

The key takeaway from the federal report, though, is that the fungus is still spreading rapidly within city hospitals this spring — and that "interventions are needed to prevent transmission during this early stage of C. auris emergence."

State officials insist they're doing everything they can to help NYC hospitals stem the spread of the superbug.

In a directive issued last August, the DOH mandated "thorough daily and terminal cleaning and disinfection of [patients'] rooms using an EPA-registered hospital grade disinfectant with a fungal claim."

Still, CDC officials wrote in their report that when federal investigators swabbed down patients' rooms for signs of the fungus in recent visits to various hospitals, they found it everywhere — on "mattresses, beds, windowsills, chairs, infusion pumps and countertops." But after a "thorough cleaning" of the room "with a sodium hypochlorite-based disinfectant," they said, traces of the superbug disappeared.

DOH spokesman Hammond could not immediately provide information on whether New York hospitals have been scrubbing down patients' rooms with a similar solution. Instead, he pointed us to the state directive from August (hyperlinked above) and recommended we reach out to the 21 hospitals on the list for any additional details on their room-cleaning protocol.

Patch has indeed begun reaching out to individual hospitals for these details. We'll update this post with whatever we hear back.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated since its original posting to include additional information from the New York State Department of Health.

Images courtesy of the CDC