Summary: | We incorporated nationwide <i>Candida</i> antifungal surveillance into the Korea Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (Kor-GLASS) for bacterial pathogens. We prospectively collected and analyzed complete non-duplicate blood isolates and information from nine sentinel hospitals during 2020–2021, based on GLASS early implementation protocol for the inclusion of <i>Candida</i> species. <i>Candida</i> species ranked fourth among 10,758 target blood pathogens and second among 4050 hospital-origin blood pathogens. Among 766 <i>Candida</i> blood isolates, 87.6% were of hospital origin, and 41.3% occurred in intensive care unit patients. Adults > 60 years of age accounted for 75.7% of cases. Based on species-specific clinical breakpoints, non-susceptibility to fluconazole, voriconazole, caspofungin, micafungin, and anidulafungin was found in 21.1% (154/729), 4.0% (24/596), 0.1% (1/741), 0.0% (0/741), and 0.1% (1/741) of the isolates, respectively. Fluconazole resistance was determined in 0% (0/348), 2.2% (3/135, 1 Erg11 mutant), 5.3% (7/133, 6 Pdr1 mutants), and 5.6% (6/108, 4 <i>Erg11</i> and 1 <i>Cdr1</i> mutants) of <i>C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. glabrata</i>, and <i>C. parapsilosis</i> isolates, respectively. An echinocandin-resistant <i>C. glabrata</i> isolate harbored an F659Y mutation in Fks2p. The inclusion of <i>Candida</i> species in the Kor-GLASS system generated well-curated surveillance data and may encourage global <i>Candida</i> surveillance efforts using a harmonized GLASS system.
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