Alert in the United States about ‘valley fever’, a deadly infection that spreads “due to climate change”

A disease ten times more deadly than the common flu is spreading across the United States. It’s about the ‘Valley fever,’ a fungal infection that spreads mostly in the desert states of California and Arizonabut whose cases have begun to appear in other locations.

Coccidioides is a genus of ascomycete fungi, responsible for causing ‘valley fever’, which it releases spores into the air when the soil where the fungi grow is disturbed. The spores are then inhaled by people, most commonly construction workers.

When humans or animals inhale the spores, they travel through the respiratory tract to the lungs, where they reproduce and cause further illness.

Typhoid fever: headache, high fever and diarrhea are some of its symptoms

Although most Coccidioides infections are mild and clear up on their own in days, up to 10% of cases are more severe and it can take months for the infected person to recover.

Symptoms of ‘Valley Fever’

Most of the symptoms of the infection resemble a common respiratory virus: cough, fatigue, fever, muscle pain, and shortness of breath. Therefore, not all people infected with the fungus know they are.

More severe cases have more obvious symptoms, such as extreme sweats, joint pain, and a red rashusually on the legs but also on the chest, back and arms.

In these cases, known as disseminated coccidioidomycosis, the disease can spread through the bloodstream to other parts of the body, including the brain, skin, and liver. If it infects the membranes and fluid that surrounds the brain, it can cause meningitis.

So you can avoid flu and colds with infallible home remedies and minimize the use of medicines

It is spread by climate change

Valley fever, which kills 1 in 100 infected people a year, could become endemic in 17 US states by 2100.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 20,000 cases of valley fever were reported in 2019. This is likely an underestimate, as valley fever has often been misdiagnosed because doctors don’t know enough about it, so patients don’t even get tested.

But a study in the journal GeoHealth predicted that, due to climate change, the endemic region of the fungus will extend north to include dry western states such as Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. (YO)