The Curse of Valley Fever

Physicians are misdiagnosing valley fever as community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) leading to unnecessary tests, multiple courses of antibiotics and increasing health care costs.

Valley fever often is not part of the initial differential diagnosis, even among occupational exposures in the endemic areas of the Southwest where archeologists, solar panel installers and other construction crews dig up the dust and are at risk for inhaling the Coccidioides spores that cause the