Cases of valley fever — a lung infection that can cause severe sickness in some people — are rising across California. And state health officials said they’re seeing an increasing number of cases of the disease reported outside the Central Valley and Central Coast areas where valley fever is traditionally most common. In the first half of this year alone, more than 5,300 people in California have caught valley fever — including five people who contracted the disease after attending the Lightning in a Bottle music festival outside Bakersfield, according to the California Department of Public Health.
These cases “occurred among people who traveled through Kern County, California, to attend the outdoor music festival,” officials said. Three of the festivalgoers were hospitalized with the condition, which is not contagious. More people among the 20,000-plus attendees at the festival may have been affected.
While valley fever has been present in the Western U.S. for years, the frequency of cases has gone up in recent years.
According to new research funded by the National Institutes of Health, the number of valley fever cases tripled between 2014 and 2018 — and then tripled again between 2018 and 2022. Overall, the infection rate has increased by 800% over the past 20 years. “We are observing quite a bit of expansion of valley fever in California,” CDPH epidemiologist Gail Cooksey told health care professionals at a briefing last week, as reported by the San Fran.