The Iowa Department of Public Health is looking for students who may’ve vacationed in Acapulco, Mexico during spring break.State Epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk says students who visited the Calinda Beach Hotel in Acapulco after March 1st may’ve been infected with histoplasmosis. Quinlisk says it’s a respiratory illness linked to a fungus found in soil enriched with bat or bird droppings. She says symptoms include fever, headache, cough and chills — but victims aren’t in any grave danger. She says most people who get the disease don’t even have symptoms, and get over it without even knowing they have it.The disease can’t be transferred between humans, but the health department wants to know if you have it.Quinlisk says over 80 students from 19 states have become ill from the disease. So far, there’ve been no confirmed cases of the disease in Iowa.
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