Important Takeaways:

• California health officials are preparing for an uptick in valley fever cases and have issued a warning over the potentially deadly fungal infection after a surge of cases linked to a local music festival
• At least 19 people attending or working at the Lightning in a Bottle music festival have contracted valley fever, according to a statement from the California Department of Public Health.
• Eight of these have been hospitalized, the health department said, warning that additional cases may emerge among the more than 20,000 festival-goers who attended the outdoor event at Buena Vista Lake in Kern County between 22 and 27 May.
• Valley fever, also known as coccidioidomycosis or just “cocci” (pronounced “cock-see”), is a lung infection caused by breathing in the spores of a soil-dwelling fungus, Coccidioides, that lives in areas in the southwestern U.S. including Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Texas, as well as parts of Washington, Mexico and Central America.
• Activities like digging, gardening or construction that disturb soil and dust—as well as weather events like dust storms—increase the risk of disturbing and inhaling spores and of those infected, about 40% will develop symptoms of respiratory illness and pneumonia like fatigue, fever and a cough between one and three weeks after inhalation.
• While most people with valley fever recover on their own without the need for medication after several weeks or months of illness, a small number of people will develop serious or long-term lung problems, between 5% and 10% of cases, and in 1% of people the infection will spread from the lungs to other parts of the body including the skin, bones, joints and brain, which can be serious or even fatal if not treated with antifungal drugs.
• Fungal diseases kill 1.5 million each year, a death toll on par with major killers like tuberculosis and more than double that of threats like malaria, HIV and breast cancer.

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