California researchers think dogs can help predict the spread of Valley fever, which has surged in recent years, likely due to climate change.
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Researchers in California believe dogs might be able to predict the spread of Valley fever, which has spiked nationwide, likely due to climate change.
With more than a third of the contiguous U.S. in a drought, there has been a surge in the dangerous airborne flu-like disease in humans.
But Valley fever is also common in dogs who dig deep in dirt and sniff close to the ground, according to University of California researchers Jane Sykes and Simon Camponuri. They published a recent study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
What is Valley fever?
Valley fever is a lung infection caused by breathing in spores from Coccidioides, a fungus that lives in the soil and dust in certain regions of the United States and the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Valley fever does not spread between people or between people and animals. But, Sykes and Camponuri believe the dog data could be used as a warning sign for where humans should look out for the disease.
Symptoms of Valley fever range from fever, cough, and chest pain to severe complications, including pneumonia and meningitis, UC Berkeley public health researchers say. Approximately 5 to 10% of people who get Valley fever will develop serious or long-term problems in their lungs, the CDC said.
Dogs are ‘sentinels for human infections’
Sykes and Camponuri evaluated almost 835,000 blood antibody tests taken from dogs nationwide between 2012 and 2022. Their research concluded that nearly 40% of dogs tested positive for the disease. The study said since dogs are closely associated with humans, the canines “serve as rough proxies” for human environmental exposures.
“Dogs are good sentinels for human infections,” Sykes, a University of California, Davis, professor, told USA TODAY. “They can help us understand not only the epidemiology of the disease, but they’re also models to help us understand the disease in humans.”
About 60 million U.S. households own at least one dog, representing nearly half of all pet-owning households in the country, according to 2024 statistics by the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Valley fever is spreading
Sykes and Camponuri tracked positive results by location. Their research showed that the presence of Valley fever in dogs spiked nearly six times from just 2.4% of U.S. counties in 2012 to 12.4% in 2022.
The study also found that the Valley fever cases in dogs spread over time, mostly centered in Arizona and California. Valley fever does not spread between people or between people and animals. But, Sykes and Camponuri believe the dog data could be used as a warning sign for where humans should look out for the disease.
“We’d like more communication and awareness about Valley fever between public health and animal care practitioners, clinicians and environmental health scientists.” Camponuri, a University of California, Berkeley researcher, told USA TODAY.
Valley fever cases in humans tripled over the past two decades, according to another study released in March that Camponuri also researched.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of adapting public health mitigation strategies to changing climate conditions,” Camponuri said. “By understanding shifts in transmission season timing, we can take proactive steps to warn the public about increases in disease risk when they are most likely to occur.”
Human cases likely higher than reported
The CDC reports it receives between 10,000 to 20,000 reports of human cases of Valley fever annually. However, Sykes thinks the actual number of cases may be at least 33-fold higher since many states don’t require reporting.
The CDC considers Valley fever endemic in parts of six states, including Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. Sykes told USA TODAY that their study found Valley fever in dogs in those states, but also in several more Western states including Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
“We are also finding cases in states where valley fever is not considered endemic by the CDC,” Sykes said. “Some of that could be due to people traveling with their dogs across state borders. We also know that these states have environmental and soil conditions suitable for the survival of the disease.
“We should be closely watching those states because there could be under-recognition of the fungal disease in humans, so many cases get missed or misdiagnosed,” Sykes added.
The study also shows the spike in dog cases was correlated with “hot spots” for human Valley fever, Sykes said, confirming its accuracy.
“We still need to do more studies to predict the incidence and frequency of the disease in humans where we have no current information,” Sykes said.
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