Killer fungus seen in Pacific Northwest

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http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/22/killer.fungus.pacific.northwest/index.html?hpt=T2

 

look at this site for info on lung fungus that is in Oregon and Wasthington.

 

 

 

Killer fungus seen in Pacific Northwest

 

By Amanda Gardner, Health.com

 

 

April

22, 2010 5:16 p.m. EDT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This strain of C. gattii fungus seems to have mutated relatively

recently, researchers say.

 

 

 

 

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

 

 

Fungus was lethal in about 25 percent of those in the U.S. who

have developed infections

Symptoms of infection include chest pain, a persistent cough,

shortness of breath

Fungus has tended to cause disease in people with weakened immune

systems

It's unlikely that it will spread across the continent via plane

or other travel

 

 

 

 

 

 

RELATED TOPICS

 

 

 

Contagious

and Infectious Diseases

 

Biology

 

Microbiology

 

 

 

(Health.com)

-- A rare but life-threatening tropical fungus that causes lung

infections in both people and animals has been seen in the Pacific

Northwest and could spread, researchers are reporting.

The fungus, known as Cryptococcus gattii (or C. gattii), has

infected dozens of humans and animals--including cats, dogs, and

dolphins--in Washington and Oregon in the past five years. While rare,

the fungus has been lethal in about 25 percent of the people in the

U.S. who have developed infections, according to Edmond Byrnes III, a

doctoral student in molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke

University and one of the lead authors of a new study about the fungus.

In the study, Byrnes and his colleagues analyzed 18 cases in people

and 21 in animals that occurred in the U.S. between 2005 and 2009.

The symptoms of infection include chest pain, a persistent cough,

shortness of breath, fever, and weight loss. The fungus can also cause

meningitis, or inflammation of the membranes lining the brain, but can

be treated with antifungal drugs. C. gattii is found in soil and trees,

but experts haven't yet determined how humans breathe it in.

Byrnes and colleagues have discovered a new, especially dangerous

strain of the fungus. This strain--which is confined to Oregon, for

now--is "highly virulent," says Byrnes. "Overall it's a pretty low

threat, and it's still uncommon in the area, but as the range of the

organism expands and the number of cases increases accordingly, it's

becoming more of a concern," he says.

The new strain is likely to move into Northern California and other

neighboring regions, the researchers say. Other strains of the fungus

have been found in people in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in a

bottlenose dolphin as far south as San Diego.

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The fungus hails from the tropics and may have been carried to North

America on imported plants or trees, experts say. It first emerged on

this continent in 1999, on Vancouver Island off the coast of British

Columbia, where it ultimately infected more than 200 people, killing

nearly 9 percent of them.

From there, the fungus is believed to have crossed the border into

the U.S. on logging trucks or car tires sometime before 2005, when the

first infections were reported in Washington and Oregon. The cases in

California "indicate that C. gattii can survive in that habitat," says

Yonathan Lewit, a research technician at Duke and a co-author of the

new study, which appears in the journal PLoS Pathogens.

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The new strain described by Byrnes and his colleagues seems to have

mutated relatively recently, and has appeared in humans as well as in

cats, dogs, and other animals. (In animals, symptoms include a runny

nose and breathing problems, and other strains have been seen in

ferrets and llamas too.)

The mutation "is causing major illness in the region, and it's

different from what's causing disease on Vancouver Island," says

Christina Hull, PhD, an assistant professor of medical microbiology and

immunology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public

Health, in Madison.

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"It supports the idea that this is a recent change in the organism,"

she adds. "That's a little more unnerving than what people had thought

before."

In the past, C. gattii has tended to cause disease in people with

weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV/AIDS. (The fungus was

found in AIDS patients in Los Angeles, for instance.) But the new

strain is causing respiratory symptoms and meningitis in otherwise

healthy people.

Experts aren't sure what makes some individuals more vulnerable to

infection and illness. "We've not been able to distinguish these people

from the population at large," says Hull. "Are they more likely to be

smokers? No. And it's happened across a range of ages and different

backgrounds."

Nor is it clear how people are contracting the infections. Although

the fungus is found in trees and soil, Hull explains, it's unclear if

breathing near a tree carrying the fungus is enough to infect a person.

And because the incubation period is unknown, tracing the illness back

to the point of infection is nearly impossible.

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"Our best guess is that it's mostly associated with trees and soil,

so certain disturbances might allow the organism to become airborne and

more or less float in the area," says Byrnes.

Although C. gattii has been found in a North Carolina man who had

traveled to San Francisco several months earlier, experts say that the

fungus is not readily passed between people (or people and animals),

and it's therefore unlikely that it will spread across the continent

via plane or other travel.

Experts stress that even people near the epicenter of the outbreak

should not be unduly concerned.

Philip Alcabes, Ph.D., an infectious diseases epidemiologist at

Hunter College, in New York City, says that genetic changes such as

those described by Byrnes are "a pretty normal, expectable evolutionary

event in nature that has a slight amount of human fallout."

In fact, he says, if this fungus follows previous patterns, it's

very possible that the virulence will decline with time.

And besides, there's not much you can do to protect yourself from it

in the meantime.

"There are no real precautions you can take,

because it's hard to tell which areas would be more infected or where

levels of C. gattii could be higher," Byrnes says.

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