Coccidioidomycosis, deadly fungal disease, no effective cure

[Astronuc]

Doctors have been searching for a cure for coccidioidomycosis, the disease afflicting the patient, since the 1890s, when an Argentine soldier was hospitalized with skin lesions that returned with a zombie-like vengeance after being scrubbed or cut off. Not long after, an immigrant farmworker landed in a San Francisco hospital with the same mutilating disease. Both patients eventually died.

It would be decades before medical researchers and public health officials connected the dots between those cases and reports of a mysterious disease referred to simply as “desert rheumatism” by the waves of settlers, immigrants, and farmworkers that rippled through the West on the heels of the Gold Rush, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and the Dust Bowl. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the disease was known as “San Joaquin Valley Fever,” and “valley fever” became the colloquial name of the infection Galgiani later dedicated his life to studying.

https://grist.org/health/valley-fever-arizona-fungus-climate-change/

The fungus that causes the disease, called coccidioides or cocci(pronounced “cox-ee”) for short, grows in the top few inches of undisturbed earth throughout the Western U.S. and flourishes during cool, rainy periods. Then, in the summertime heat of the desert, its delicate fungal threads desiccate. Once they’re dry, any disturbance of the topsoil — a foot kicking up earth, a bulldozer digging a foundation, an earthquake shaking loose clouds of dust — sends infinitesimal spores swirling into the air, where they can be sucked through the nasal passages and into the lungs of passing humans or animals.

Most people who breathe in cocci spores — about 6 in 10 — won’t develop symptoms. But the 40 percent of exposed people whose immune systems can’t or won’t fight off the fungus develop symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches, coughing, and rash that can last weeks or months. In the 5 to 10 percent of symptomatic cases where the fungus invades the vital organs, the death rate is as high as 25 percent. The pathogen is so powerful the U.S. army weighed whether to develop it into a bioterrorism weapon in the 1960s.

Valley fever is endemic to southern Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Central and South America, but nowhere are cases of the disease more common than in Arizona. After Arizona started mandatory laboratory reporting for valley fever in 1997, registered cases ticked up and down. But the number began trending upward dramatically in 2016. Then, in 2024, cases in the state exploded, hitting their second-highest total ever. More than 15,000 infections were reported — a 37 percent increase over 2023. California, which runs just behind Arizona in its annual valley fever caseload, registered a record-breaking 12,637 cases in 2024, representing a 39 percent increase over the previous year, which had already smashed a record set in 2019.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

My parents moved to AZ several years ago and have talked about this. I think I'll stay where I am

 

[sbrothy]

My parents moved to AZ several years ago and have talked about this. I think I'll stay where I am

Yeah, the name alone initially scared me away from the link!

 

[OmCheeto]

I have a problem with a portion of the title of this thread:

Coccidioidomycosis, deadly fungal disease, no effective cure​

{bolding mine}

As I've mentioned often, I have zero formal training in medicine, and not even a biology class in high school, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

As far as 'my' definition of 'cure' goes, there are cures for this infection. In fact, according to the Mayo Clinic; "Valley fever most often clears up on its own." [ref]
so I would say that our bodies have the cure.
And if we're a tad different, and our bodies don't have the cure, then there are prescription medications that can clear it out:
Mayo Clinic; "The antifungal medicine fluconazole (Diflucan) most often treats all but the most-serious forms..."

On the other hand, the author of the article may have meant by 'cure' that there is no vaccine that will prevent infection by this fungus. Which is so far true, as according to my latest googlings, there are no vaccines to prevent any fungal infections.

Ok. I'm done ranting.

 

[sbrothy]

We may disagree about (on?) a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure we all enjoy a good rant now and again!

 

[OmCheeto]

My parents moved to AZ several years ago and have talked about this. I think I'll stay where I am

Are either smokers? According to this article ; "The risk of pulmonary fungal disease, such as coccidioidomycosis, cryptococcosis etc., is considerably increased in smokers."

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Are either smokers? According to this article ; "The risk of pulmonary fungal disease, such as coccidioidomycosis, cryptococcosis etc., is considerably increased in smokers."

Thankfully not

 

[sbrothy]

Thankfully not

Not so thankful here. I have COPD and I still smoke. It's an insidious habit. I'm wondering if nitrogen or a quick 'eadshot would be better than asphyxiating to death. Or of course I could catch that fungus! Make a whole thing of it!

EDIT: *Runs after the fungus with a net!

EDIT2: Nah, it's not remotely funny. Any of it. I have a bad habit of joking in the face of bad news.

 

[jedishrfu]

We obsess over tick borne Lime disease or some mosquito borne illness like Chickengunya or those rare critters rattlesnakes, coral snakes, black widow and brown recluse spiders oh and scorpions or occasional coyote pack and mountain lions.

Other than that, we’re good.

Doesn’t Arizona have the Hantavirus from rodents to worry about?

 

[BillTre]

We obsess over tick borne Lime disease or some mosquito borne illness like Chickengunya or those rare critters rattlesnakes, coral snakes, black widow and brown recluse spiders oh and scorpions or occasional coyote pack and mountain lions.

Other than that, we’re good.

Doesn’t Arizona have the Hantavirus from rodents to worry about?

I think they have plague too.

 

[sbrothy]

I think they have plague too.

At least the plague can be cured with penicillin.

 

[jedishrfu]

We have a song in Texas sung to the Irish Washerwoman tune called:

The Devil Made Texas written and sung by Hermes Nye



And Ed Miller’s modern rendition: