Toxic Fungus Moves Into Oregon Forests - 180 Sickened, Eight Dead On Vancouver By Same Bug Since 99

[hatrack]

EUGENE, Ore. -- It sounds like a bad B movie, a toxic fungus in the woods of the Pacific Northwest drifting into peoples' lungs, causing illness and death. But cryptococcus gattii is out there and has affected a handful of Oregonians, most recently a Junction City woman hospitalized for more than four months this fall.

In the Northwest it was first detected on Vancouver Island in 1999, where it has sickened about 180 residents and killed eight, said Karen Bartlett, associate professor of environmental health at the University of British Columbia. The disease is still rare. Previously it was associated with tropical and subtropical climates. Nobody is quite sure how it wound up in Oregon.

Bartlett said it may have arrived on an imported plant or bird. Others say it may have been here for a long time, unnoticed until changes in climate or land-use patterns allowed it to grow in high enough concentrations to become airborne. Even small changes in climate, such as an increase in temperature of a degree or two, can cause changes to microscopic organisms that are in dynamic balance with each other, she said.

Once the fungus is established in soil or in trees, it can float in the air in dry weather, she said, causing an infection in the lungs, or more seriously, in the central nervous system, causing fungal meningitis. Symptoms include severe cough and shortness of breath, often accompanied by chills, night sweats and anorexia.

EDIT

http://www.kptv.com/news/14956808/detail.html

[kestrel91316]

1. Cryptococcus used to be a RARE disease. This new species

is going to be LESS rare in the years to come. And I have to watch out for it in my patients.

[depakid]

4. So cats are affected by these pathogens too?

Do they get Valley Fever as well?

{on edit- oops, wrong Kestrel!}

[kestrel91316]

6. I have seen a few cases of Cryptococcus over the years.

But none(yet) that had Cryptococcus gattii. It's a problem in the Pacific Northwest, not here. Though its association with eucalyptus has me concerned that we could eventually see it here......

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=17078248

[kestrel91316]

7. Re the Valley Fever - I've only ever seen one suspected case in a cat,

and the owner declined a major workup so who knows??

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1196/annals.1406.007
"......skin lesions predominate in the cat....."

[phantom power]

2. at least we haven't been afflicted with...

any uber-creepy fungus like this.



http://www.metacafe.com/watch/331826/ant_fungus/

Yet.

[hatrack]

3. Wow! Can you imagine a fungus capable of living in an organism based on formic acid?

Jeez.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Mmmm. Yet. nt