Valley Fever: It's Nothing like Spring Fever!

Ready or not, spring fever infects us all! In Arizona, spring fever brings Major League Baseball's (MLB) spring training Cactus League games. All through March, Phoenix area hotels, resorts, and time-share condominiums are brimming with enthusastic fans of the Kansas City Royals, Chicago Cubs, Anaheim Angels, Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Milwaukee Brewers. Likewise, the Tucson area lodging options are packed with passionate fans of the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox teams. Coincidentally, valley fever infects the Southwestern United States, and particularly Arizona, as the spring temperatures begin to rise alongwith the roar of the MLB cheering fans!

If you don't live in the American Southwest, why is this important to know?

The answer is simple. Everyone breathes. If you 'just visit' Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, California, or Mexico, you breathe the same dry, hot desert air everyone else does. That dry, dusty air is a 'fiesta' for valley fever. It is a lung infection caused by a fungus. The infection can lead to pneumonia, and even death. The medical community has named the fungus, coccidioidomycosis, and more commonly call it cocci (pronounced kok-see).

Valley fever is documented across the Southwest, but the highest incidents of cocci are reported in the Arizona counties of Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima. The University of Arizona's Medical Center, in Tucson, is home to the Valley Fever Center for Excellence (VFCE). The center is teamed-up with Arizona Community Physicians, also in Tucson's Pima County, to track the occurrences and details of the valley fever cases in Arizona. All cocci lab tests are sent there for analysis, and all x-ray reports regarding cocci are documented. "Arizona state statistics show that reported cases of valley fever are at record levels. . . four times the five-year average for the (2006) January-April time period . . . "(from research page at www.vfce.arizona.edu, accessed 18 March 2007)