Rare Tropical Fungus Spreads From BC To Washington State - 100+ Infected, Two Dead So Far

[hatrack]

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) -- A rare tropical fungus that has infected more than 100 people since it appeared in British Columbia six years ago has crossed the border into Whatcom County, health officials say. Cryptococcus gattii, invisible to the naked eye and found mostly in trees and soil, has infected at least four residents this year, two of them fatally, county health officer Greg Stern said.

Considering how many are exposed to the fungus annually, often in the woods and other outdoor areas, infection remains relatively rare, he and other medical experts said. "I'm concerned about the emergence of a new disease, but it still is relatively rare and that part is reassuring," Stern said. "Even on Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland, where the assumption would be fairly significant exposure to the spores, very few people get sick."

On the other hand, scientists haven't found a way to reduce the risk of getting the disease, he noted. Cryptococcus gattii is sometimes resistant to medication that is used to treat a more common, related fungus, Cryptococcus neoformans, which typically infects people whose immune systems are impaired.

Courtney Blomeen, 16, of Blaine, the county's fourth known case this year, first thought she had a severely strained shoulder muscle and a chest cold last month, but a computer imaging scan revealed otherwise. "I couldn't breathe, it scared me so much," her father, Greg Blomeen, told The Bellingham Herald. "Her left lung had completely blocked off. There were marble-sized nodules that were showing bright white. It was so bad that the one lung was at collapse."

EDIT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KILLER_FUNGUS?SITE=MOSTP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[depakid]

1. Oh great- something else to freak out about

and to think, I scoffed at Southerners and South Westerners with their brain eating amoeba's.

[phantom power]

2. you scoffed at us? wait till those brain eating amoebas migrate north.

[depakid]

4. Let's not leave SoCal out!

Looks like this fungal deal is similar in some respects to another emerging disease:

coccidioidomycosis.

Valley fever

Coccidioides immitis is similar to C. gattii in that it primarily colonizes soil, and disease is acquired by inhaling aerosolized spores. Coccidioidomycosis outbreaks have occurred as a result of soil disturbances as well as windborne dispersal. Such outbreaks were documented after a California earthquake, after separate point-source exposures among archaeology students in northern California and Utah, and after a windstorm in Kern County, California, that led to many coccidioidomycosis cases in non–disease-endemic areas of the San Joaquin Valley in California.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/13/1/51.htm

[fed-up]

5. valley fever is older than dirt- :) nt

[kestrel91316]

3. This bug is also associated with eucalyptus trees, IIRC, and has

killed a few cats. Why we don't have MORE of it in SoCal with all our eucalyptus, I'll never understand. Probably too goddamned dry.

[pscot]

6. The article neglected to mention

that recent transplants from California are peculiarly susceptable to the fungus, while persons of Scandinavian descent appear to be immune.

[skids]

7. Would have made a nice addition to my dkos diary...

...I'm sure there will be yet another sequel, though.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/30/195458/034

[tom_paine]

8. We are heating up the petrie dish that is the Earth,

One would expect the microbial flora and fauna to perhap enjoy faster growth and reproductive rates, and will therefore evolve somewhat faster overall.

I wonder if that speculation has any basis in scientific truth? Perhaps I will Google it.