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Abstract

After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a rapid rise in reported numbers and wide geographic spread of -related invasive infections has been observed globally. However, the contemporary epidemiology of fungaemias in Greece remains unknown. An outbreak of bloodstream infections has been ongoing for almost 3 years in a Greek tertiary care academic hospital, with 89 -driven episodes appearing in five waves every 6–7 months following peaks in colonisation rates by 3–4 months. All isolates clustered in clade I and were genetically related, 84% were fluconazole-resistant and all were non-resistant to amphotericin B and echinocandins, except one pan-echinocandin-resistant isolate ( mutant) recovered from a patient on empiric therapy with anidulafungin. Notably, was in 2023 the most prevalent (34%) cause of candidaemia in our hospital. The accelerated and long-term transmission dynamics of fungaemia underscore the need for rigorous infection control measures, while antifungal stewardship is warranted to contain the selection of echinocandin-resistant isolates.

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/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.45.2400128
2024-11-07
2024-12-12
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.45.2400128
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