Individuals with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes are also at a higher risk. Age also affects the severity of the disease, with more than one-third of deaths being in the 65-84 age group. History
The first case of what was later named coccidioidomycosis was described in 1892 in Buenos Aires by Alejandro Posadas, a medical intern at the Hospital de Clínicas "José de San Martín". Posadas established an infectious character of the disease after being able to transfer it in laboratory conditions to lab animals. In the U.S., Dr. E. Rixford, a physician from a San Francisco hospital, and T. C. Gilchrist, a pathologist at Johns Hopkins Medical School, became early pioneers of clinical studies of the infection. They decided that the causative organism was a Coccidia-type protozoan and named it Coccidioides immitis (resembling Coccidia, not mild).Dr. William Ophüls, a professor at Stanford University Hospital (San Francisco), discovered that the causative agent of the disease that was at first called Coccidioides infection and later coccidioidomycosis was a fungal pathogen, and coccidioidomycosis was also distinguished from Histoplasmosis and Blastomycosis. Further, Coccidioides immitis was identified as the culprit of respiratory disorders previously called San Joaquin Valley fever, desert fever, and Valley fever, and a serum precipitin test was developed by Charles E. Smith that was able to detect an acute form of the infection.
By including the cost for trichiasis treatment, the estimated overall cost for the disease increases to about $US 8 billion. References
External links
CDC Disease Info trachomaCelia W. Dugger (31 March 2006), "Preventable Disease Blinds Poor in Third World", The New York Times
Photographs of trachoma patients
Trachoma Atlas
International Trachoma Initiative