The Impact of Cryptococcus gattii with a Focus on the Outbreak in North America

Cryptococcus gattii is an emerging infectious disease with an expanding geographic range that gained increased attention during the Vancouver Island outbreak in 1999 [54]. Cases of infection with C. gattii were first reported in regions of Africa and Australia [46, 57]. C. gattii has been environmentally isolated from eucalyptus and other trees from tropical and subtropical regions [63, 123]. Prior to the 1999 outbreak, C. gattii infections were extremely rare in temperate regions of North America [12, 87]. Subsequently, C. gattii has been recognized as a cause of outbreak infections in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest United States. It also has been seen as a cause of low-level sporadic infections in other parts of North America and worldwide. Interestingly, the genotypes of the outbreak C. gattii strains differ from the genotypes of the C. gattii strains causing sporadic infections.