An actress was left looking ‘like a monster’ before she died from a deadly fungus spreading across the US.
Denise DuBarry contracted the black fungus Candida auris while in hospital for care for another illness and passed away at 63.
The fungus finds its way into the bloodstream through open wounds after first ‘colonising’ the patient’s skin.
Cases have been documented in 28 states, with some badly hit regions such as Nevada, California and Florida seeing hundreds.
The alarming spread has been described as “a serious global health threat” by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Denise appeared in TV shows such as Charlie’s Angels, Days Of Our Lives and The Love Boat.
Her daughter, actress Samantha Lockwood, 40, told the Daily Mail: “It was a pretty horrific situation, to be brutally honest. Having seen my mom in such a state, I cannot even wish it on my worst enemy, what I saw.”
Denise had been hospitalised with a sinus infection in California in March 2019.
Samantha said her mother picked up the fungus after being transferred to Loma Linda hospital.
She added: “And when I saw her, one of her eyes was completely bugged out of her head. She’s a gorgeous woman. She looked like a monster. She was swollen with edema, she had tubes coming out of her throat, her tongue was swollen out of her face.”
Anyone with weakened immune systems is particularly at risk from the fungus which resists treatment by common anti-fungal medications.
Sharon McCreary, 61, told the Daily Mail her mother Lorraine, 86, suffered a fatal stroke after catching the fungus while in hospital with pneumonia last summer.
Sharon read about the disease after being told her mum had contracted it. She said: “I read it and I looked at my husband and I said, ‘This kills 50 percent of the people who get it.’ I just had this dread, and it was rightfully placed dread.”
The CDC said: “In the United States, most cases of C. auris result from local spread within and among healthcare facilities in the same city or state.”
The number of cases spiked during the Covid pandemic.
The CDC said nearly half of patients who contract C. auris die within 90 days.
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