It hasn't even been eight years since Candida auris was discovered—cultured and identified from the ear canal of a patient in Japan—and now it's drug-resistant, setting up residence in hospitals, killing patients, and wreaking havoc across the globe.

The yeast, C. auris, finds its way into patients' bloodstreams, favoring very sick patients, those who have a central venous catheter placed in a vein, and those who have previously received antibiotics or antifungal (yeast are single-celled fungi) drugs. It also likes to infect wounds and ears.

Hospital outbreaks of C. auris infections have occurred in over a dozen countries. One particular outbreak in 2015 saw 20% of patients in an adult critical care unit in England infected with the microbe. As of February 3, 2017, 33 cases have appeared in the US, with 28 of them occurring in New York.

Image via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

It can be hard for hospitals to tell if it's C. auris that's causing an infection; It's very hard to grow in the lab, and is hard to differentiate from other Candida yeasts, so special molecular laboratory tests are the only way to positively identify the yeast.

And there's more bad news from this microbe. It's resistant to all antifungal drugs, "something we haven't seen previously," Dr. Cornelius J. Clancy, Chief of Infectious Diseases at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, told NPR.

So, the yeast is hard to identify, is a killer, and is resistant to all the drugs usually used to treat it. Can the news get worse? Yes, according to a new study in the February 2017 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases—C. auris also forms biofilms, notoriously tough, slimy biologic films that are hard to eliminate.

But, wait! There is some good news. The new study also found that the yeast is sensitive to topical application of the disinfectant chlorhexidine, so it can be used to kill off the fungus on skin and wounds.