
New Deadly Fungus Found in U.S., Has Already Killed Six - chaostheory
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100421-new-fungus-cryptococcus-gattii-deadly-health-science/
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donw
A quick look at the Wikipedia article and the BC CDC website seem to indicate
that intravenous antifungals are effective, although removal of infected
portions of lung tissue is sometimes required.

Digging through the CDC website now; looks like the first cases appeared
around 1999, and that it's a fairly rare disease. So, as always if you've got
a cough that's stuck around for awhile, see a doctor.

Fungi are nasty things when they get in the human body, because just like
human cells, fungi are eukaryotes, and so a lot of the tricks that work
against bacteria don't come into play.

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tokenadult
_looks like the first cases appeared around 1999, and that it's a fairly rare
disease._

[original research?] Oddly, I actually know someone here in the United States
who had an infection like that more than a decade earlier, after travel to a
tropical country. There probably wasn't such elaborate genetic testing for
specific strains available in those days, so the infection was only classified
as to genus, Cryptococcus, in that patient. The infection was so puzzling to
the doctors at a major metropolitan research and teaching hospital that
treated the patient that even the hospital's director of infectious disease
gave the patient a bedside visit.

AFTER EDIT: From another news story, a link to the PLoS report on the newly
reported strain of Cryptococcus:

[http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2F...](http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1000850)

This link

<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol4no1/buchanan.htm>

on the related fungal species Cryptococcus neoformans describes why usually
fungi of this genus are not particularly pathogenic and what characteristics
of Cryptococcus fungi most influence disease virulence.

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gort
Interesting. Cryptococcus neoformans is a relatively common cause of fungal
infection.

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pingou
"the infection can be treated with antibiotics". I thought antibiotics didn't
kill fungus ?

~~~
gort
Possibly a mistake for "antifungals".

~~~
tokenadult
Yes. "Antimicrobial" would be the general term.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial>

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TNO
If six people have died from this, is it really a cause for alarm? I'd be more
concerned with falling down the stairs honestly, not to mention that this is
treatable (the fungus that is, not the broken neck.)

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mapleoin
But the fungus is spreading!

So do houses with stairs though. Hm...

