Reducing Delays in Valley Fever Diagnosis

According to a study published in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters, it links the rise in dust storms with an 800 percent increase in cases of Valley fever, a rare fungal lung infection. ... Valley fever, a disease caused by inhaling the soil-dwelling fungus Coccidioides. Jun 1, 2017.  Read more on studies about dust storms and valley fever: "Why more dust storms and Valley fever are blanketing the Southwest ..."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/dust-storms-valley-fever-blanketing-southwest

From a publication of the UA Health Sciences :  an excerpt on Top Stories in 2017 at the UA Health Science – December 21, 2017

Earlier this month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave regulatory clearance for a molecular assay test for rapid detection of coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever, or cocci) using DxNA LLC’s GeneSTAT.MDx Coccidioides test and GeneSTAT System(link is external). That test (which reduces the time for results from as long as 21 days to the same day and without need for a Biosafety Level 3 lab to do culture testing) was developed using data licensed from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Northern Arizona University. Among sites that assessed the test were Banner Health and Laboratory Sciences at Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix and the UA BIO5 Institute(link is external), under Anne Wertheimer, PhD(link is external), associate director, Infectious Disease Research Core, and director, Diagnostic Laboratory Sciences, UA Applied Sciences Graduate Interdisciplinary Program.

“My lab in the UA BIO5 Institute was one of the three external validation and reproducibility testing sites and my team collected prospective, as well as a handful of retrospective, specimens,” Dr. Wertheimer said. “The assay was very robust for use by both entry-level as well as highly skilled technicians and eliminates exposure of lab personnel to a highly infectious culture.” Click (link is external)to read more.