A senior infectious diseases specialist, Dr Marion Kainer, has called for the introduction of a notification system for the drug-resistant fungus infection Candida auris.

Dr Kainer, head of infectious diseases at Western Health in Melbourne, says doctors in the US are required to notify their state health departments of an infection with C. auris. 

But no such system exists in Australia, and there’s no data on the fungus, says the former infectious disease director at the Tennessee Department of Health in the US.

C. auris is a yeast that predominately affects immunosuppressed people.