(Insider) – Every year, an estimated 23,000 Americans die from antibiotic-resistant superbugs — germs that evolve so quickly, existing treatment options can’t eradicate them. But it’s not just deadly drug-resistant bacterial infections that are spreading. We also have to worry about drug-resistant fungal infections, too. A deadly, drug-resistant fungus called candida auris is spreading on a global scale and causing what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls “urgent threats.”

In 2009, doctors first found candida auris in the ear discharge of a patient in Japan. Since then, the fungus has spread not just to the U.S., but also numerous other countries, including Colombia, India, and South Korea, according to the CDC. The CDC reported the first seven cases of candida auris in the United States in August 2016. In May 2017, a total of 77 cases were reported in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma. After looking at people in contact with those first 77 cases, the CDC determined that the quick-spreading fungus had infected 45 more. READ MORE