Valley fever

Valley Fever In many years of wintering in Yuma, AZ, I only met one person who'd ever contracted Valley Fever, and he survived. Not trying to minimize the problem.

In our group of about a dozen that have wintered in southern AZ for 10 to 12 years, two have serious problems with Valley Fever. One so bad that she refuses to winter in AZ again.
We love the area and will continue our stays in AZ and southern CA and pay attention to the dust when the wind blows hard.

I just was taking about this in another post earlier tonight

One of my local friends (coastal San Diego) who is young and fit and a mountain biker, got valley fever a few years ago and nearly died. He looked like a ghost of himself for a long time. It is an illness to be taken seriously.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a very informative webpage, link, which includes "Print-N-Go Factsheets" for California and for the Southwest. These fact sheets include info on statistics (number of cases).

Valley Fever can be mild or can be deadly it is how your system responds to the fungus. It is the worst for black and Filipino males who get the disseminated version more than any other group.

The biggest problem in Central California is they are bulldozing thousands of acres of land for solar farms. This disturbs the soil and when the wind blows there's more of the spores floating about. Having live 70 years in Az and Ca I have not seen one case of it. My take is it's media hype..especially since the article comes from New York...Then again, I've never been bitten by a scorpion or been struck by lightning either...:W....Dennis

I'm a healthcare worker and have seen some really bad cases of Valley Fever. There are misconceptions out there, but this can really be nasty! You'll have to take my word for it.

DW & I picked up a light case of it last year while dry camping in Q. The biggest problem is that drs in northern states have never had any cases so are pretty much clueless. I still have a cough and some breathing problems from it. A friend got it in AZ and northern dr said it was lung cancer. He went to Phoenix where he found out it was valley fever.

It is even a bigger more serious problem for pets. They are low to the ground and dig in the dirt having more direct contact than humans. Thousands of dogs go undiagnosed and die from it.

It is THE reason I chose not to RV and/or buy property there after I hit the road full time.

A friend here in Tucson died from Valley Fever 4 years ago. She was in great health otherwise, but loved to garden and contacted the spores that way. Yes, it can be very serious and fatal.

Statistics
The Valley Fever Center for Excellence estimates there are about 150,000 cocci infections a year in people, with one-third resulting in a possibly lengthy respiratory illness (i.e., an illness requiring medical attention). Yet only a fraction of those cases are correctly diagnosed and reported.
In 2012, there were 12,958 confirmed cases of Coccidioidomycosis in Arizona. It is second only to Chlamydia (a sexually transmitted disease) as the most reported infectious disease in the state, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services, Office of Infectious Disease Services.
In Pima County there were about 1500 laboratory-confirmed cases of cocci in 2012, according to Michael Acoba, Pima County Health Department Epidemiology Program Manager.
“We think about 400 people a year in Arizona get a serious illness due to cocci,” says John Galgiani, M.D.