Mysterious disease-causing fungus lurks in northern soil

A strange disease spread by a fungus almost exclusive to northwestern Ontario and Manitoba has doctors stumped.

• FROM DEC. 10, 2002: Rare fungal infection raises concerns for doctors

The fungus, which can cause a variety of conditions ranging from pneumonia to bone infections and skin abscesses, is thought to be in the soil.

The affliction, known as blastocmycosis, has even killed some people. Doctors were not sure of the total because the disease remains difficult to diagnose.

And doctors cannot say exactly how or why it's spread. And because it affects so few in the country, Health Canada says it will not put it on its reportable disease list.

Since 1990, about 60 people a year in northwestern Ontario seem to contract it more than anywhere else in the world.

"We don't see this disease anywhere else other than northwestern Ontario and Manitoba, nowhere else in the country," Dr. John Embil of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority told CBC.

Embil said he can't get any funding for his research, studies which may reveal the true causes of the disease.

"It's just not a high volume disease and it's not perceived to be of significant importance," Embil said. "That's not to say it's not important. It's just not given the same interest and priority of more prevalent conditions."

Critics say the federal health ministry isn't doing enough to track the disease, although the Ontario and Manitoba health units are launching awareness campaigns.

"I don't know what Health Canada is doing," said Bruce Birchard, whose son contracted the disease last summer.

"I mean they're not doing what they should be doing. We've had all kinds of other awareness campaigns out there SARS, West Nile, BSE," Birchard said.

In February, 12-year-old Daniel Birchard started getting headaches and noticed a bump on his head.

His parents suspected it was blastomycosis, contracted during a summer cleanup underneath their Lake of the Woods cottage.

It took several doctors to spot the disease. The Birchards pushed doctors to test their son for blastomycosis.

"That's when they noticed that there was a hole, that the fungus had eaten through my skull and there was all this mush and bone," Daniel told CBC.

He was put on anti-fungal medication for a year and will require more surgery.

Last August, the family dog, Daisy, was diagnosed with blastomycosis. It's thought she contracted it after rooting around in dirt at the cottage. Daisy lost an eye to it.