Kodamaea ohmeri fungemia in a newborn. Case Report

Introduction: Kodamaea ohmeri, considered an emerging human pathogen in recent decades, is a rare infection with a high mortality rate (40-50%). It mainly affects individuals with weak immune systems, such as neonates and older adults. Case presentation: A 19-day-old male patient with acute fever was taken to a tertiary care children's hospital in Cartagena, Colombia, with no history of disease. The patient came from a rural area in which he lived in an environment where food supplies were traded in small-scale businesses. Physical examination was normal and biomarkers of infection showed C-reactive protein at 4.7mg/L. The patient was admitted to the neonatal intermediate care unit, where treatment with oxacillin and amikacin was started under suspicion of late bacterial sepsis, but this regimen was suspended 2 days later due to a report of yeast growth in fungal blood culture (Saboraud agar), so treatment with caspofungin at 50mg/m2 was started due to suspicion of candidemia. Finally, two more days later, the yeast was identified as K. ohmeri, which was not resistant to the antifungal agent used. On the fifth day of treatment with the antifungal agent, no fungus was reported in the follow-up blood culture, and the patient was discharged 10 days after initiating treatment without clinical or paraclinical evidence of side effects. Conclusion: Given its high mortality rate, timely detection and treatment of K. ohmeri fungemia is critical. For this reason, it should be suspected in patients with a weak immune system who present with signs of infection in the absence of clinical evidence of other more common infections and in whom exposure to this yeast is a possibility, as was the case of our patient.