Deadly Superbug Identified on Sandy Beach in Remote Tropical Archipelago RACHAEL RETTNER, LIVE SCIENCE 17 MARCH 2021 A deadly hospital superbug has been discovered on a remote island beach, marking the first time researchers have seen this multidrug-resistant organism in the "wild". The findings, published Tuesday (March 16) in the journal mBio, may provide clues to the origins of this superbug, Candida auris, which mysteriously popped up in hospitals around the world about a decade ago.
"It's a medical mystery, where did it come from," said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.