State to Get $1.6 Million for Valley Fever Watch

The California Department of Health Services will receive a grant of about $1.6 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to bolster its surveillance of valley fever, a fungal disease that strikes about 4,000 people a year in the state.

The grant is part of a new effort by CDC to monitor infectious agents that currently strike relatively small numbers of people, but have the potential to produce widespread outbreaks.

The California grant is part of $6.7 million in grants to four states to improve monitoring of these so-called emerging diseases. Oregon will focus on bacterial meningitis and contaminated food, Connecticut is studying Erlichia, a tick-borne infection that can be fatal, and Minnesota is emphasizing food-borne infections.

All four states will also increase efforts to monitor other emerging diseases, such as the Group A streptococcus that is commonly, but erroneously, known as flesh-eating bacteria.

CDC had hoped to establish a $75-million global sentinel system to monitor emerging diseases, but Congress did not appropriate funds for such an effort.

Valley fever, technically known as coccidioidomycosis, is caused by a fungus that resides in the soil in large areas of the Southwest. When the spores are released into the air by farming or wind, they can be inhaled by humans, causing disease. Symptoms range from a mild flu-like illness to severe pneumonia to a rarer condition in which bones and internal organs are dangerously infected.

Although the disease is most common in the San Joaquin Valley, an outbreak occurred early last year in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura after the Northridge earthquake, which caused large quantities of dust to waft into the air. More than 200 cases and three deaths were reported.