New research is helping to explain how the fungus that causes Valley fever ended up in south-central Washington state.
About 12 years ago, a patient got Valley fever after crashing their ATV and getting soil inside their knee, which had gotten cut up in the accident. That led the local health department to test the soil around that area, and found the fungus there.
They then found several other cases nearby that did not have connections or travel to other endemic areas, like Phoenix.
Dr. Dave Engelthaler is director of the Infectious Disease Branch at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, or TGen, and one of the authors on this paper. He told The Show how it became clear that what some folks were experiencing in Washington State was, in fact, Valley fever.
