Inhalation of the airborne spores of the fungus Blastomyces has killed a worker and hospitalized 12 others at a large paper mill in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Local public health authorities announced last week that were 27 confirmed and 76 suspected cases of the respiratory illness called Blastomycosis among the plant’s nearly 900 employees.
Blastomyces is a well-known fungus that is common in forested areas in the eastern half of the United States and southern Canada and is endemic to heavily forested northern Michigan.
Sickness is Not Contagious
The disease, which is not transmissible from person to person, is associated with the fungus that thrives in moist, decomposing, logs, brush, leaves, and sometimes soil….