Climate change may be driving spread of a deadly fungus from U.S. Southwest
By Meredith Wadman, Science.
Excerpt: ...The disease [Coccidioides fungus] causes ...Valley fever is familiar in the Southwest, where it has infected wildland firefighters; carrot, beet, and radish pickers; solar power farm builders; and cast and crew members on a Ventura County film set. ...the fungal spores, nourished in the warm, wet confines of the lung, morph into structures called spherules that burst to release boatloads of tiny endospores that become new spherules, continuing the cycle. Most of these people have a flulike illness lasting weeks or months. But 5% to 10% of cases result in lifelong lung infections, sometimes forcing people to be on powerful antifungal medications permanently. ...cases are escalating fast. Diagnoses ...have ballooned from about 2800 annually at the turn of the century to about 20,000 in 2023, with at least 200 people dying each year. Arizona and California, where roughly 97% of U.S. cases are reported, have seen dramatic increases recently: Incidence in Arizona has grown by 73% in the past 10 years—to 146 cases per 100,000 people. In California, incidence quadrupled between 2014 and 2023 to 23.2 cases per 100,000 people. ...One likely contributor is a warming climate. The fungus thrives in hot, dry soil where it can get the best of competitors by going dormant during drought, then rebounding after rain returns. Valley fever cases tend to spike after wet winters that follow droughts, says Tom Chiller, chief of the mycotic diseases branch at CDC....