Local Leaders Ask For $7M To Raise Awareness And Combat Valley Fever
The funding request comes as valley fever cases are spiking statewide to epidemic levels and sprawl outside of traditional endemic regions in the Central Valley.
The Bakersfield Californian:
Assemblymen Ask State For $7 Million In Fight Against Valley Fever To Fuel Research, Spread Awareness
Bakersfield Assemblymen Vince Fong and Rudy Salas submitted a bipartisan $7 million budget proposal Monday to combatting valley fever, an insidious respiratory disease endemic to Kern County. If approved, it will be the largest amount of money the state has ever designated at one time to research and raise awareness of the orphan disease, which in 2017 infected at least 5,121 people in California, according to state data. The proposal requests a $3 million grant to fund treatment, research and outreach at the Valley Fever Institute at Kern Medical Center; $1 million for the California Department of Public Health to create an outreach and awareness campaign to educate the public about the disease; and $3 million to the University of California system for valley fever research. (Pierce, 3/13)