There’s a harmful fungus lurking in the dirt around St. George. It enters people’s lungs when it becomes airborne, causing valley fever.
The fungus isn’t like the apocalyptic zombie strain made popular by the TV show and video game “The Last of Us.” But if left untreated, valley fever can still lead to hospitalization and even death, according to infectious disease specialist Ginamarie Foglia.
“Many people don't know what valley fever is,” the adjunct professor at Rocky Vista University College of Medicine in Ivins said. “People have to be aware when there's dirt in the air and it's being moved, they are at risk.”
And that’s a problem in fast-growing Washington County.
As development gobbles up more and more previously undisturbed desert landscapes, excavators and bulldozers are kicking that fungus into the air.
Construction workers may be the most vulnerable. And that becomes a health justice issue, University of Utah epidemiologist Katharine Walter said, because many of those workers may not have medical insurance or access to a doctor.
When the wind carries the dust, plenty of other people in the community are at risk, too.
“This major excavation of soil that is happening right now to create luxury developments, to create golf courses — that is also creating tremendous dust exposures,” Walter said.
The main way to mitigate the spread of construction dust is to spray it with water, which is a resource already in short supply in St. George.
Nationwide, valley fever diagnoses have increased dramatically since the late 1990s, as more Americans move to the edge of the arid landscapes the fungus calls home. Scientists know Utahns are getting sick with valley fever, Walter said, but there hasn’t been systematic research to confirm exactly where the fungus lives.
That’s why her team is studying dirt samples from around 40 sites in Washington County, which she said has Utah’s highest incidence of valley fever, known by the scientific name coccidioidomycosis. Her research has found the fungus in around 8% of the soil she has inspected countywide.
“It's worrying because a lot of the sites that we sampled that were positive are quite close to residential areas,” she said. “St. George is also a place that has an older population than the rest of Utah, so people might be at greater risk there than other places.”
Walter plans to use the soil sample data to model valley fever’s potential prevalence across Utah and create maps that can better predict fungal hotspots statewide.
The impact of climate change on the state’s temperatures could push the fungus into parts of central and northern Utah where it has historically been less common. And if droughts become more intense and prolonged, it could create conditions that make dust storms more pervasive.
As President Donald Trump’s administration cuts the budgets and staff at federal scientific agencies, though, Walter said it is becoming increasingly difficult to do this kind of research.
“We won't be able to know if valley fever is in Washington County unless the NIH [National Institutes of Health] can fund that work, and we won't be able to communicate that to the public health officials in the state of Utah if the Department of Health and Human Services is defunded.”
Public awareness about valley fever is already lower in Utah than in other parts of the Southwest, Walter said. So, she and Foglia will share the soil sample results during a lecture at the Kayenta Center for the Arts in Ivins on May 20.
Getting valley fever information in front of the public could ward off infections before they happen.
“I believe prevention is better than trying to cure something. It's a lot cheaper, and it's something that we're in control of,” Foglia said. “What I do — and what I recommend patients do — is, when there's a lot of wind, wear a mask.”
Even many health care professionals don’t have valley fever on their radar, Walter said, which can lead to misdiagnosis.
“The goal is not to perpetuate fear of the environment or fear of going outside, but it's just to know that this is part of the environment in southern Utah,” she said, “and also to raise awareness among health care providers so that people can get diagnosed and treated early.”
