Valley Fever: A disease that can be contracted by breathing in the air in the California valleys.

Valley fever, a disease that people can get just breathing the air in hot and dry regions in the valleys of central California.

In recent years, residents of these regions have developed symptoms such as severe headaches, which doctors misdiagnosed sinus infections or cluster headaches.

After several medical examinations, a resident of Bakersfield, the capital of Kern County, experts His meningitis was diagnosed as being caused by valley fever, a disease caused by Coccidioides, an endemic fungus found in the southwestern United States..

“It took everything, my health. It had a huge impact on my family. We lost everything, all our financial security, our pension,” Bakersfield resident Rob Purdy told The Guardian.

A disease that does not affect everyone

Purdy belongs to a small percentage of people with severe reactions to valley fever. a disease that most people do not develop after exposure to the fungus, and very few people have severe symptoms. However, for people with chronic symptoms, valley fever can be devastating.

Experts say the disease is on the rise in California’s Central Valley. in the future, cases could increase in the western United States as the climate crisis makes the landscape hotter and drier..

Kern County, north of Los Angeles, has seen a significant increase in valley fever over the past decade. There were 1,000 cases in 2014, according to public health data, and that figure has increased to more than 3,000 in 2021..

Hot and dry conditions of the US Southwest allows the fungus that causes valley fever to survive.

“Much of the western United States is already very dry. When we look at climate change projections, the western half of the US is expected to continue to be quite dry, and that will continue to fuel valley fever,” said Morgan Gorris, an earth systems scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who has studied the relationship. between the climate crisis and valley fever or coccidioidomycosis.

Reason: fungus

The fungus grows in the soil as a thread that segments, breaks and travels through the air, reaching distances of up to 75 miles. People can contract valley fever by digging in untouched ground or simply inhaling.

It is believed that people who work outdoors are most at risk of contracting valley fever. Last summer, seven firefighters fighting wildfires in the Tehachapi Mountains, southeast of Bakersfield, developed respiratory problems, three of whom were diagnosed with valley fever.according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nearly 20,000 cases of valley fever were reported to the CDC in 2019 nationwide, mostly in California and Arizona.an average of about 200 disease-related deaths annually between 1999 and 2019.

According to expert research, climate crisis could expand valley fever areas. In a warming scenario with high greenhouse gas emissions, the valley fever endemic zone could expand northward, reaching the Canadian border by 2100.

In California like climate change during periods of heavier rainfall and then subsequent dry seasons, conditions in which valley fever thrives, more cases may be reported.

In the case of Purdy, after all found an adequate treatment for valley fever: four tablets a day and drugs injected directly into his brain every 16 weeks.. Difficult treatment that caused him to vomit violently, almost knocking him unconscious.

However, Purdy became an advocate for Valley Fever awareness and managed to return to work at the Valley Fever Institute as a patient and program development coordinator.

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