Does Anybody Know Anybody who had Valley Fever in Las Cruces? (Albuquerque: calculator, live in)

[jenbooks13]

As a science journalist I get emailed articles daily. I got this one a few days ago about Valley Fever infection rates on the rise:

Valley fever blowin’ on a hotter wind. — The Daily Climate

VF is formally known as Coccidioidomycosis, the airborne fungi that causes it, when stirred up in dust from the soil.

I contacted the CDC, who referred me to state infection rates on the websites for the department of health. Texas doesn't report but Arizona and NM do.

Here's NM (Scroll down--23 cases in 2007 and 35 in 2008). The area of NM that is endemic encompasses Dona Ana county but not up towards Albuquerque etc.

[SIZE=2]http://www.health.state.nm.us/epi/pdf/NMEDSS_weekly_2009_7.pdf[/SIZE][SIZE=2]

[/SIZE]
Here's Arizona:

[SIZE=2]http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/oids/pdf/countycases2007.pdf[/SIZE]


Arizona has the highest infection rates, especially in Maricopa County (where Phoenix, Scottsdale, Sun City are). They had nearly 3500 cases in 2007; there are about 3,800,000 people in Maricopa County.

Yesterday I spoke with John Galgiani, the expert at Univ Arizona, who told me that there's a 3% year infection rate across the entire area, and the reason rates look higher in AZ in those counties is that's where all the people are. That 3% gets compounded so your risk goes up the longer you live in an area.

But when I did the percentages on my calculator, it still looked to me like the infection rate in Maricopa County is 7 times higher than in NM.

One of the other issues is that some people get infected and are asymptomatic and conquer the infection and never know it. Others get infected and get an upper respiratory type flu and never realize what it was. About 5% get a bad infection that requires ongoing antifungals and a percentage of THOSE get really sick and maybe are disabled, have to get lung surgery, or in rare cases die.

If anybody has heard of risk in NM or knows about it please post, thanks!

[ibarrio]

Never heard of Valley Fever until I moved to Phoenix,Az....I was born and raised in Cruces (25 years before I moved).

[funkymonkey]

Hmm. nope, I've never heard of someone who had that.

[malamute]

I know about it, but like you stated, most people get exposed and never know it. It's a common enough cause for pneumonia and TB like symptoms. Every hospital has seen systemic infections. Many people in Dona Ana use El Paso hospitals, especially the free one and since Texas doesn't report it, you can't get true statistics.

[jenbooks13]

Thanks everybody, and if anybody else can weigh in, thanks as well.

I don't know why Texas doesn't report, as they are definitely an endemic area. All the other endemic states do. Shame on Texas!

[lawmom]

I asked two ED docs last nigjht, and neither has seen anyone with Valley Fever here in LC. One has been here only a year, the other 7 years.

[jenbooks13]

Thanks Lawmom. Do you mean ER docs (emergency room)?

Generally do folks in LC have decent health care and go to their primary care practitioners for upper respiratory flu's (which is the common form of VF, which 40% get--only 5% get REALLY sick with a bad lung or disseminated infection). Does the hispanic population have good health care or do they, as the other poster suggested, go to the free hospital in Texas?

I am nervous because of my own health history, which may be irrelevant, but emotionally it is not (in the summer of 2000, I walked in a garden in connecticut and got a bad case of lyme that became chronic). Thus I tend to worry now about any possible health risks.

Maybe I should call some of the local hospitals. Anyway I very much appreciate all the input and it is very helpful!!! Asking local docs is a great idea.