Dramatic Jump in Valley Fever Cases Reported : Health: County officials say they are not surprised by the increase. Two deaths have been blamed on the flu-like disease.

Ventura County health officials confirmed Wednesday that an unprecedented 23 cases of Valley fever have been reported so far this year and that the number of actual cases is probably much higher.

Two deaths in the county this year have been blamed on the flu-like disease, which is transmitted by an airborne fungus often carried by dust particles in strong winds.

Although only seven cases were reported in 1991, health officials said they are not surprised by the dramatic increase in the first four months of this year.

“The state’s infectious disease (authorities) predicted we would have an increase,” said Lawrence E. Dodds, the county’s health officer. The dust storms that plagued motorists in the San Joaquin Valley over the Thanksgiving holiday were expected to spread the fungus, he said.

“Sure enough, a couple of weeks after that, cases started to be reported to us,” he said.

Other counties have also reported sharp increases in Valley fever. Kern County, where the disease is always the most widespread, reported 477 cases so far this year.

In a typical year, Kern County averages 230 to 300 cases. Last year, 1,181 were reported, the bulk of them during windy conditions at the end of the year.

In Los Angeles County, 25 cases have been reported this year; last year’s count was 41.

The fungus takes four to eight weeks to produce symptoms that make a person feel ill, Dodds said. Some people exhibit no symptoms and the disease can only be detected through a blood test. Others may have mild flu-like symptoms, a persistent cough or painful red bumps on their shins.

For a small number, the disease spreads to the lungs and the rest of the body, often requiring hospitalization and lengthy treatment with intravenous medicine.

Dodds said the 23 reported cases in Ventura County were people so severely ill that they had to be hospitalized. Doctors are required to report each diagnosed case of Valley fever to county health authorities, but some do not bother or are unaware of the reporting requirement.

“Very few doctors report it,” said Dr. Hans Einstein, medical director of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and an authority on the disease.

Einstein said he has been a consulting physician for more Valley fever cases than have been reported to Ventura County authorities this year. He estimated that he has acted as a consultant on about 50 cases referred by seven doctors since December.

Two people from Simi Valley have died from the fever, he said. One was a 28-year-old nursing student with flu-like symptoms and a persistent cough that continued for two months. The student saw a physician but was not tested for Valley fever.

Einstein’s surprising statistics surfaced Tuesday at a hearing on the proposed Weldon Canyon dump at a site north of Ventura at the mouth of the Ojai Valley. In a written statement, he urged the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to consider whether dust from the landfill operation would cause the disease to spread.

“What you had (in Ventura County) was an epidemic,” he said Wednesday in an interview. “It has subsided now, but it was clearly an epidemic during November through January.”

Dodds disagreed that the outbreak of Valley fever should be considered an epidemic because the disease is not contagious.

“We’ve certainly had an increase in the number of cases,” he said. “But it’s not like measles or AIDS.”

He said there was nothing that health officials could do about the increase.

“It comes out of the environment,” he said. “This is a natural event whenever you have east winds.”

The county has never been hit this hard by the fever. In 1990, there were seven cases, with two in 1989, two in 1988 and nine in 1987.

The disease is named for the San Joaquin Valley, where it is most commonly found, along with other arid sections of the Southwest. Health experts believe that soil conditions have something to do with the location of the fungus. Strong winds and dust storms spread the spores, which people inhale.