FATAL FUNGAL DISEASE EXPANDS OUTSIDE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

People are typically infected with cryptococcus gatti when they inhale the airborne spores of the fungus. 

 

A rare fungus found in soil and trees has sickened hundreds of people in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in the last decade -- and killed dozens -- but scientists now say they’re seeing different strains of the potentially deadly bug in additional US states.

 

As of June, 171 cases of infection caused by Cryptococcus gatti, a fungus once confined to tropical climates, had been reported in the U.S.   That includes at least 100 cases in Oregon and Washington, where officials have been tracking an outbreak since 2004.

 

But at least 25 cases have been detected in eight states outside of the Northwest since 2009 -- and six of those patients died, according to a new report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

 

No one’s calling it a public health crisis; officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they just want to raise awareness.

 

Of the six patients in the new tally who died, four succumbed to severe lung and brain infections before they were diagnosed. A previously healthy 18-year-old Georgia woman showed up at a community hospital with a headache and fever -- and died within two weeks of getting sick.

 

Of those who provided travel information, none had been to the Pacific Northwest recently, the study found.

 

Thirteen of the newest U.S. cases were reported in California, with five more in Georgia, two in New Mexico and one each in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan and Montana. 

 

The reason the new cases are interesting, and worth documenting, is because they provide evidence that C. gattii isn’t confined to the Northwest and could be an unrecognized source of pneumonia and meningitis across the U.S.

 

Read more - http://www.nbcnews.com/health/deadly-fungal-disease-detected-outside-pacific-northwest-8C11126084

 

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More on Cryptococcus gatti: 

 

http://www.bccdc.ca/dis-cond/a-z/_c/CryptococcalDisease/overview/default.htm

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptococcus_gattii

 

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Link to this post - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/09/fatal-fungal-disease-expands-outside.html

 

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