Mississippi Today
Medicine-resistant fungal infection, C. auris, potentially linked to four deaths in Mississippi
Medicine-resistant fungal infection, C. auris, potentially linked to four deaths in Mississippi
Mississippi is battling an outbreak of C. auris, a fungal infection resistant to medication, which the Department of Health says may be responsible for the deaths of four people.
“Our investigation is ongoing and fluid,” said health department spokesperson Liz Sharlot.
Sharlot said the department has identified 12 clinical cases of the infection and four “potentially associated deaths.” Both those numbers doubled since State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers last gave a report about the infections to the Board of Health in January.
C. auris is still rare in the United States. The people most vulnerable to an invasive infection – such as in the blood, heart or brain — are already sick from other medical conditions.
At the center of the Mississippi outbreak is a long-term care facility in central Mississippi. Some patients with the infection have also received care at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
When patients with a C. auris infection arrive at the hospital, they are each assigned one nurse who cares for them exclusively, according to UMMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lisa Didion.
“That's how dangerous this is,” Didion said last week during a Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Health Affairs Committee meeting.
Doctors first identified C. auris — or Candida auris — in Asia in 2009. It has quickly become a cause of severe infections around the world with some strains resistant to all three available classes of antifungals.
The yeast — a type of fungus — can be carried on patients' skin without causing infection or symptoms, allowing it to easily spread to others.
The Department of Health says it has identified 53 “colonized” patients, meaning patients who aren't sick with an active infection but were found to be carrying the organism somewhere on their body. That number was 37 about four weeks ago.
“When we get patients from that facility (in Central Mississippi), we really have to be sure that we isolate them appropriately,” Didion said of the care at UMMC. “This particular organism is extremely transmissible and has a very high mortality rate.”
The CDC has found that C. auris spreads most often in long-term health care facilities among patients with severe medical problems. The fungus can cause bloodstream infections and death. More than 1 in 3 patients with an invasive infection of C. auris will die, according to CDC research.
Mississippi's first cases were identified in November 2022, Byers wrote in a January update on the outbreak.
“This is a rapidly expanding and serious situation,” Byers said at the time.
The majority of cases are based in one long-term care facility but a second central Mississippi facility has some patients with detected colonization. A handful of other cases have been reported at other health care facilities across the state, according to Byers' update.
C. auris is resistant to some commonly used disinfectants. In response, the health department has asked health care facilities across the state to obtain the appropriate products in preparation should the outbreak grow.
Didion said while they have treated patients with the infection, they have had no transmission of the fungus within the hospital so far.
“But it is a reason to stay focused,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1896
MAY 18, 1896
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation on railroads or similar public places was constitutional, forging the “separate but equal” doctrine that remained in place until 1954.
In his dissent that would foreshadow the ruling six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that “separate but equal” rail cars were aimed at discriminating against Black Americans.
“In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens,” he wrote. “Our Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law … takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
Renada Stovall, chemist and entrepreneur
Renada Stovall sat on the back deck of her rural Arkansas home one evening, contemplating life when she had a life-altering epiphany…
“I gotta get out of these woods.”
She heard it as clear as lips to her ear and as deep as the trees surrounding her property. Stovall's job as a chemist had taken her all over the country. In addition to Arkansas, there were stints in Atlanta, Dallas and Reno. But she was missing home, her parents and friends. She also knew, she needed something else to do.
“I thought, what kind of business can I start for myself,” said Stovall, as she watered herbs growing in a garden behind her south Jackson home. Some of those herbs are used in her all-natural products. “I know when I lived in Reno, Nevada, where it's very hot and very dry, there really weren't products available that worked for me, my hair, and my skin suffered. I've got a chemistry degree from Spelman College. I took the plunge and decided to create products for myself.”
In 2018, Stovall's venture led to the creation of shea butter moisturizers and natural soaps. But she didn't stop there, and in December 2022, she moved home to Mississippi and got to work, expanding her product line to include body balms and butters, and shampoos infused with avocado and palm, mango butter, coconut and olive oils.
Nadabutter, which incorporates Renada's name, came to fruition.
Stovall sells her balms and moisturizers at what she calls, “pop-up markets,” across the state during the summer. She's available via social media and also creates products depending on what of her ingredients a customer chooses. “My turmeric and honey is really popular,” Stovall added.
“The all-natural ingredients I use are great for conditioning the skin and hair. All of my products make you feel soft and luscious. The shea butter I use comes from West Africa. It's my way of networking and supporting other women. And it's my wish that other women can be inspired to be self-sufficient in starting their own businesses.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1954
MAY 17, 1954
In Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed equal treatment under the law.
The historic decision brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, ruling in the case of student Linda Brown, who was denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.
In Mississippi, segregationist leaders called the day “Black Monday” and took up the charge of the just-created white Citizens' Council to preserve racial segregation at all costs.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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