United States: California health officials are expecting an increase in the number of people contracting valley fever and have issued a warning over the deadly fungal infection after a rise in infection cases connected to a local music festival, an alert which may become routine in the future across the United States as climate change promotes hot and dry weather, which is ideal for growth of the fungus and the some of the infections which are responsible for the disease. While most people tend to recover from the infection
Tomás Aragón, who is the director of the California Department of Public Health and the state’s public health officer also added that they are “expecting another possible rise in the incidence rate of valley fever in the next few months;” there is always a surge in the cases of valley fever in the late summer and the fall especially when winds can bring up dust and so on and on and on.
As reported by Forbes there are at least 19 people attending or working at the lightning in the bottle music festival have contracted valley fever according to a statement from the California Department of the Public Health.
Eight of these have been hospitalized the department the health department said and the warning that the additional cases may emerge among more than almost 20,000 festival goers who attended the outdoor event at Buena Vista Lake in Kern County between 22 and 27 May.
Valley fever is also known as coccidioidomycosis or just cocci is a lung infection which is caused by breathing in the spores of the soil dwelling fungus coccidiosis’s in the United States including Arizona, California Nevada , New Mexico, Utah and the Texas as well as the parts of Washington, Mexico and the Central America.
There are some activities like digging and gardening or construction that disturb soil and the dust as well as weather events like dust and the storms and also increase the risk of disturbing and inhaling spored and of those infected about almost 40 percent will develop symptoms of the respiratory illness and pneumonia like fatigue fever and a cough between one and the three weeks after inhalation.