A GoFundMe page has also raised about $20,000 for his family.

A 29-year-old Michigan chef has died after battling a rare fungal disease.Ian Pritchard reportedly contracted blastomycosis, a fungal-borne disease, sometime before Thanksgiving last year new york post. The disease exhausted his respiratory system and eventually damaged his lungs, the report said.

A GoFundMe page About $20,000 was also raised for his family.

Pritchard, who was hospitalized in December, died on Sunday due to a “blastomycosis infection that caused irreparable damage to Ian’s lungs,” the report said.

with Live broadcast from the north, “They showed us pictures of his lungs and they actually looked like Swiss cheese,” said his father, Ron Pritchard.

Initially, Ian Pritchard was taken to a hospital in Petoskey, Michigan. However, his condition quickly deteriorated and he was transferred to Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

People contract the disease by breathing in spores of the fungus, Blastomyces, which is found in moist soil, rotting wood and leaves in the Midwest and South, the report added.

Speaking about how his son contracted the disease, Ron Pritchard said: “It’s in the air, it’s in the trees, it’s in the wet leaves, it’s underground, it’s in the dirt, it’s everywhere. Michigan Everywhere in the northern part of the state—actually the Midwest—is covered [Blastomyces]”.

He added that the best-case scenario for his son would be a lung transplant, but according to doctors, that would be possible only after the infection clears up.

Reports say infection usually occurs within 2 to 15 weeks. Symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath and muscle pain in half of the patients. The disease has no cure but can be treated with antifungal drugs such as itraconazole, the report said.