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Posted: 7/23/2010 12:32:31 AM EST
15 US Deaths Tied To Rare Tropical Fungus





Tree Fungus Killing Animals Too

MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
Posted: 12:23 pm EDT July 22, 2010
Updated: 4:56 am EDT July 23, 2010

ATLANTA –– A fungus usually found in the tropics has taken root in the Pacific Northwest and has been blamed in the deaths of 15 people over the last six years, health officials said Thursday.

At least 60 people have been sickened in four states by the fungus, cryptococcus gattii, which grows on or around trees. Illness occurs months after people breathe in its microscopic spores, and can be treated with anti-fungal medications.

While still considered rare in North America, health officials say they want doctors to know to look for it and patients to be aware of it.

The overall risk to the public is very low, and there's no need for people to avoid going outdoors and exercising, said Julie Harris, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The fungal illness began to show up in British Columbia, Canada, in 1999, and may have spread southward, although at least one different strain has been found in the United States. Scientists don't know why the tropical illness has appeared in the Northwest but not in other northern locations.

Since 2004, there have been 43 cases in Oregon, 15 in Washington, one in California and one in Idaho, the CDC said Thursday.

Of those 60 cases, the outcome is known in 45, and 15 ended in death. The fungus caused nine of the deaths, and was believed to be a factor in the other six, officials reported.

Symptoms include a persistent cough, headache and shortness of breath. Some cases have worsened into a pneumonia- or meningitis-like illnesses.

British Columbia has counted 272 illnesses since the first cases were detected, said Dr. Eleni Galanis, an epidemiologist with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Canadian officials don't have an up-to-date count of deaths, but an earlier analysis suggested a death rate of about 9 percent.

The proportion of U.S. and Canadian cases ending in death may sound alarmingly high, but it's likely others have been infected but weren't diagnosed because they didn't develop serious illness, Harris said.

Also, most of those who got sick had another condition that likely made them more susceptible to the fungal illness.

People are not the only victims. More than 50 cases in animals have been reported in the United States, including cats, dogs, ferrets, elk and porpoises.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr



It begins.

Link Posted: 7/23/2010 12:33:41 AM EST
[#1]
I wonder if that's what I have on my foot?
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 12:41:45 AM EST
[#2]
Them tree huggers are fucked now!
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 12:55:20 AM EST
[#3]
Quoted:
I wonder if that's what I have on my foot?


Link Posted: 7/23/2010 1:00:16 AM EST
[#4]
Quoted:
Them tree huggers are fucked now!



HA HA HA HA HA Yes they are...

Link Posted: 7/23/2010 1:16:35 AM EST
[#5]
WOW, that's like three times more than swine flu!  We need to spend a couple hundred billion dollars looking into this.  Thank God Obamacare already passed.



John
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 1:20:15 AM EST
[#6]
Funny stuff reading about this, could you imagine all the possibilities of the dormant Diseases that could be just sitting there in the Tropical Rainforest?
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 1:21:21 AM EST
[#7]
This kind of thing is why importing the wrong kind of orchid is a felony...
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:32:05 AM EST
[#8]










Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:34:18 AM EST
[#9]
I blame the Fungus Show loophole
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:36:06 AM EST
[#10]
I blame climate change.
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:38:14 AM EST
[#11]
well thats one way to kill the Libs in the north
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:42:44 AM EST
[#12]
I'll have to share that with my folks.
Link Posted: 7/23/2010 6:48:00 AM EST
[#13]
Fungus Amungus!    
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