California well being officers are urging individuals who attended the Kern County music pageant Lightning in a Bottle to hunt medical care if they’re experiencing respiratory signs or a fever.
Authorities have recognized 5 sufferers with valley fever who attended the six-day occasion, which was held Could 22-27 at Buena Vista Lake, close to Bakersfield. Three individuals have been hospitalized.
Greater than 20,000 individuals attended the pageant.
One attendee, on a Reddit r/LightningInaBottle thread, mentioned a pageant companion had been hospitalized for 2 weeks with “extreme” valley fever.
“In case you get unexplainable signs similar to fever, chills, and complications/neck ache,” the person wrote, “let the docs comprehend it could possibly be valley fever, though it has been a number of months.”
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Valley fever is an infectious illness brought on by the coccidioides fungus, which grows within the soil and filth in some areas of California. It’s mostly discovered within the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast of California.
Well being officers say that most individuals uncovered to this fungus do not find yourself creating the illness, however it could possibly infect the lungs and trigger respiratory signs in some individuals, together with cough, issue respiratory, fever and fatigue.
In uncommon circumstances, the fungus can unfold to different components of the physique and trigger extreme illness.
Valley fever isn’t contagious. Previous outbreaks have been linked to mud and filth publicity at outside occasions and job websites the place filth is disturbed — in areas of the state the place the fungus is frequent.
Valley fever is on the rise in California, with significantly excessive numbers of circumstances reported in 2023 and 2024. The fungus seems to flourish in moist years.
A 2022 study in the medical journal the Lancet concluded that multiyear cycles of dry circumstances adopted by moist winters elevated transmission, particularly in areas that have been traditionally wetter. Local weather change is predicted to extend the frequency and length of drought all through the Southwestern United States, probably growing the prevalence of valley fever spores and fungus.
Kern County has the very best incidence fee within the state, and it accounts — on common — for a few third of the circumstances.
State well being officers say that individuals who have visited Kern County in current months and are experiencing respiratory signs that haven’t improved or are lasting longer than per week ought to see a healthcare supplier and ask about attainable valley fever.
Additionally they urge individuals to say attendance on the music pageant or journey to Kern County.
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Attendees can go to the California Division of Public Well being’s valley fever survey website for extra info and to share particulars about any sickness.
Another Reddit user mentioned they got here down with the illness two weeks after coming back from the pageant to their residence in Colorado.
The music fan described a “horrible” cough, headache, physique aches, fever and chills. The Reddit person isn’t certain they’d go once more subsequent yr.
“Do not need to miss … however I additionally do not desire a fungal lung an infection once more. Yikes.”
This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.
