Harborview Halted 29-Case C. auris Outbreak With 11,639 Tests and Universal PCR Screening
Updated
Updated · UW Medicine Newsroom · Aug 20
Harborview Halted 29-Case C. auris Outbreak With 11,639 Tests and Universal PCR Screening
1 articles · Updated · UW Medicine Newsroom · Aug 20
Summary
Harborview Medical Center contained a C. auris outbreak after a 23-week campaign that found 29 colonized patients, with none developing symptomatic infection or needing antifungal treatment.
11,639 tests on 5,563 patients underpinned the effort as the Seattle hospital expanded from targeted checks to admission-wide and weekly screening, then cut turnaround to 20 hours with an in-house PCR test.
Strict infection controls reinforced the screening: positive patients were moved to single rooms, staff used gowns and gloves, and rooms were cleaned twice with bleach and twice with ultraviolet light, with ATP checks triggering recleaning.
Half of patients who acquired colonization in the hospital had occupied bed spaces previously used by colonized patients, highlighting environmental spread in a 500-bed facility with many shared rooms and high-risk patients.
C. auris has spread to 41 U.S. states since 2016 and caused more than 20,000 cases, including over 3,400 this year; invasive infections have been linked to death rates above 30%.