Specialists Checking Into Valley Fever

Four specialists from the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are in Ventura County to examine the high number of cases of valley fever, health officials said Tuesday.

The team has confirmed at least 150 cases of the disease just in the month of February, said Dr. Rana Hajjeh, a medical epidemiologist working on the CDC team. Over the last few years, Ventura County has averaged 50 cases a year, said Hajjeh, who attributed the outbreak to the dust stirred up by the Jan. 17 earthquake.

“This is the first time that a valley fever outbreak has been associated with an earthquake,” she said.

The virus is spread by spores from a fungus that lives in the soils of Southern California.

Symptoms of the virus are much like a serious flu, Hajjeh said, and include chest pains, fever and aching muscles. It is rarely fatal, and in only 1% of the cases does the disease spread to other areas of the body, she said.

The outbreak in Ventura County has garnered attention mostly because it is associated with the earthquake, Hajjeh said.

Other areas have been hit much harder by the disease in recent years. Kern County has consistently had more than 1,000 cases a year, she said.

The team, which arrived about two weeks ago, will stay in Ventura County for several more weeks looking for further confirmation that the outbreak was caused by the earthquake, Hajjeh said.