Illinois One Of Hardest Hit States In Different Fungus Infection

Did you think we're only dealing with cyclospora this summer? You silly goose.

While everyone's paying attention to lettuce and "explosive diarrhea" this summer, there's a different illness making the rounds in the U.S. and one of the hardest hit states so far is Illinois.

The fungus is called Candida auris and it's on the uptick, according to the CDC.

Over 3,000 cases of it have been reported in the U.S. with about 380 of those being in Illinois.

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It's a fungus that spreads in healthcare settings and people who are already sick can be more susceptible to it.

Symptoms of it include chills, extreme tiredness, fever, low blood pressure, high heart rate, and (weirdly) pain in the ears.

It can make people who are on a breathing or feeding tube, urinary catheters, and catheters in a vein very sick. It can become very severe in general.

And the challenge: the fungus has proven resistant to at least one type of antifungal infection, which makes it really hard to treat.

It spreads quickly and easily. It can live on surfaces for a long period of time and even if people aren't infected, they can still spread it to other people. The CDC has caught it in the U.S. for the last several years.

At the moment, Illinois comes in 3rd in the amount of these fungus cases. Texas sits at about 700, while Michigan is at almost 530. The CDC has recommendations to help contain it, like infection control measures in hospitals and doctors' offices, screening programs, and rapid detection.