Trailblazing civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson was hospitalized in Chicago on Wednesday due to symptoms from the neurodegenerative condition progressive supranuclear palsy.
His hospitalization was confirmed in a statement by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a social justice organization founded by Jackson.
The 84-year-old Baptist minister and political figure has been battling the neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade, according to the statement. He was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but the PSP diagnosis was confirmed in April.
PSP is an atypical parkinsonian disorder, a group of neurodegenerative disorders that resemble Parkinson’s disease in some motor symptoms but typically have more a rapid progression and severe prognosis.
Thea rare brain disease results from a build-up of tau protein in areas of the brain that control body movement, causing progressively degenerative symptoms including trouble balancing, inability to aim the eyes, slurred speech, loss of walking and challenges swallowing.
The civil rights leader was born in 1941 in segregated Greenville, S.C., and rose to prominence alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.
He advocated for corporations to hire more Black Americans through Operation PUSH and founded the Rainbow Coalition in the 1980s to unite marginalized groups and working-class voters around shared goals of social, economic and political justice as well as greater political representations. He was the first Black presidential candidate to attract major national support, winning 3.5 million votes in 1984 and 7 million in 1988.
Police at UCLA have issued a crime alert after two students reported being drugged at recent parties near campus.
The first incident occurred Thursday, when the first victim went to three different parties along Gayley Avenue and “developed symptoms which they did not believe were from alcohol,” according to the crime alert.
That student reported the incident a couple days later.
The second incident occurred in the 600 block of Gayley Avenue on Saturday when a student, after being handed a drink, also developed symptoms they did not believe to be from alcohol or marijuana, according to the alert. That student went to the emergency room and reported the incident later that night.
No suspect description was provided, and the incidents are being investigated as off-campus aggravated assaults using drugs, police said.
When Nora Bruhn bought admission to the Lightning in a Bottle arts and music festival on the shores of Kern County’s Buena Vista Lake earlier this spring, her ticket never mentioned she might end up with a fungus growing in her lungs.
After weeks of night sweats, “heaviness and a heat” in her left lung, a cough that wouldn’t quit and a painful rash on her legs, her physician brother said she might have valley fever, a potentially deadly disease caused by a dust-loving fungus that lives in the soils of the San Joaquin Valley.
Bruhn said she hadn’t been warned beforehand that Kern County and Buena Vista Lake are endemic for coccidioides — the fungus that causes the disease.
“If there had been a warning that there’s a potentially lethal fungal entity in the soil, there’s no way I would have gone,” said the San Francisco-based artist. “Honestly, I would have just been paranoid to breathe the whole entire time I was there.”
The incidence and range of valley fever has grown dramatically over the last two decades, and some experts warn that the fungus is growing increasingly resistant to drugs — a phenomenon they say is due to the spraying of antifungal agents on area crops.
As annual cases continue to rise, local health officers have sought to increase awareness of the disease and its symptoms, which are often misdiagnosed. This messaging however focuses only on Kern County and other Central Valley locations and rarely reaches those who live outside Kern County, or other high-risk areas.
In the case of the Lightning in a Bottle festival, Bruhn said she wasn’t provided with any information about the risk on her ticket, or in materials provided to her by the event organizers. As far as she can recall, there were no signs or warnings at the site where she ate, slept, danced and inhaled dust for six straight days.
And she wasn’t the only one infected. According to state health officials, 19 others were diagnosed with coccidioidomycosis in the weeks and months following the event. Five were hospitalized.
According to a statement provided by the California Department of Public Health, officials have been in communication with organizers and “encouraged” them to notify “attendees about valley fever and providing attendees with recommendations to follow up with healthcare providers if they develop illness.”
Do LaB, the company that stages the festival, said through a spokesperson that it adheres to the health and safety guidance provided by federal, state and local authorities. “Health and safety is always the primary concern,” they said.
The company’s website warns festivalgoers about the prevalence of dust — but doesn’t mention the fungus or the disease.
“Some campgrounds and stage areas will be on dusty terrain,” the website says. “We strongly recommend that everyone bring a scarf, bandana, or dust mask in case the wind kicks up! We also recommend goggles and sunglasses.”
Bruhn said that’s not enough.
“I think it’s really irresponsible to have a festival in a place where breathing is possibly a life-threatening act,” she said.
Kern County’s health department is also in discussions with the production company.
Kern County’s Buena Vista Lake was the site of the Lightning in a Bottle festival this spring.
(Nora Bruhn)
In California, the number of valley fever cases has risen more than 600% since 2000. In 2001, fewer than 1,500 Californians were diagnosed. Last year, that number was more than 9,000.
Most people who are infected will not experience symptoms, and their bodies will fight off the infection naturally. Those who do suffer symptoms however are often hard-pressed to recognize them, as they resemble the onset of COVID or the flu. This further complicates efforts to address the disease.
Take for example the case of Brynn Carrigan, Kern County’s director of public health.
In April, Carrigan began getting a lot of headaches. Not really a “headache person,” she chalked them up to stress: Managing a high-profile public health job while also parenting two teenagers. But as the days and weeks went by, the headaches became more frequent, longer in duration and increasingly painful. She also developed an agonizing sensitivity to light.
“I’ve never experienced sensitivity to light like that … all the curtains in my house had to be closed. I was wearing sunglasses inside — because even the clock on my microwave and my oven, and the cable box … oh, my God, it caused excruciating pain,” she said. In order to leave the house, she had to put a blanket over her head because the pain caused by sunlight was unbearable.
She also developed nausea and began vomiting, which led to significant weight loss. Soon she became so exhausted she couldn’t shower without needing to lie down and sleep afterward.
Her doctors ordered blood work and a CT scan. They told her to get a massage, suggesting her symptoms were the result of tension. Another surmised her symptoms were the result of dehydration.
Eventually, it got so bad she was hospitalized.
When test results came in, her doctors told Carrigan she had a case of disseminated valley fever, a rare but very serious form of the disease that affects the brain and spine rather than the lungs. In retrospect, she said she probably had the disease for months.
Valley fever, a fungal infection, spreads through dust.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
And yet, here she was, arguably the most high-profile public health official in a county recognized as a hot spot for the fungus and the disease, misdiagnosed by herself and other health professionals repeatedly before someone finally decided to test her for the fungus.
Now she’ll have to take expensive antifungal medications for the rest of her life — medication that has resulted in her losing her hair, including her eyelashes, as well as making her skin and mouth constantly dry.
As a result of Carrigan’s experience, her agency is running public service announcements on TV, radio and in movie theaters. She does news conferences, talks to reporters and runs presentations for outdoor workforces — solar farms, agriculture and construction — to educate those “individuals that have no choice but to be outside and really disturbing the soil.” She’s also hoping to get in schools.
But she realizes her influence is geographically constrained. She can really only speak to the people who live there.
For people who come to Kern County for a visit — like Bruhn and the 20,000 other concertgoers who attended Lightning in a Bottle this year — once they leave, they’re on their own.
A truck raises dust on a dirt road in Bakersfield in March 2022.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Outside of California, valley fever is also prevalent in Arizona and some areas of Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Texas, as well as parts of Mexico and Central and South America
Experts worry that as the range of valley fever spreads — whether by a changing climate, shifting demographics, or increased construction in areas once left to coyotes, desert rodents and cacti — more and more severe cases will appear.
They’re also concerned that the fungus is building resistance to the medicines used to fight it.
Antje Lauer, a professor of microbiology at Cal State Bakersfield and a “cocci” fungus expert, said she and her students have found growing pharmaceutical resistance in the fungus, the result of the use of agricultural fungicides on crops.
She said the drug fluconazole — the fungicide doctors prescribe off-label to treat the disease — is nearly identical in molecular structure to the antifungal agents “being sprayed against plant pathogens. … So when a pathogen gets exposed via those pesticides, the valley fever fungus is also in those soils. It gets exposed and is building an immunity.”
It’s the kind of thing that really concerns G.R. Thompson, a professor of medicine at UC Davis and an expert in the treatment of valley fever and other fungal diseases.
“If you ask me, what keeps you up at night about valley fever or fungal infections?, it’s what we do to the environment” he said. “We learned that giving chickens and livestock antibiotics was bad, because even though they grew faster, it led to antibiotic resistance. Right now, we’re kind of having our own reckoning with fungal infections in the environment. We’re putting down antifungals on our crops, and now our fungi are become resistant before our patients have ever even been treated.”
He said he and other health and environment professionals are working with various local, state and federal agencies “to make sure that everybody’s talking to each other. You know that what we’re putting down on our crops is not going to cause problems in our hospitals.”
Because at the same time, he said, there’s a growing concern that the fungus has become more severe in terms of clinical outcomes.
“We’re seeing more patients in the hospital this year than ever before, which has us wondering … has the fungus changed?” he said, quickly adding that health experts are actively investigating this question and don’t have an answer.
John Galgiani, who runs the Valley Fever Center for Excellence out of the University of Arizona in Tucson, is hopeful that a vaccine may be forthcoming.
He said a Long Beach-based medical startup called Anivive got a contract to take a vaccine that’s being developed for dogs — outdoor-loving creatures with noses to the ground and a penchant for digging, and therefore susceptible to the disease — and reformulate it to make it suitable for human clinical trials.
He said prison populations, construction workers, farmworkers, firefighters, archaeologists — anyone who digs in the soil, breaths it in or spends time outdoors in these areas — would be suitable populations for such inoculations.
But he, like everyone else The Times spoke with, believes education and outreach are the most important tools in the fight against the disease.
As there is with any other risky activity, he said, if people are aware, such knowledge empowers them with choice — and in this case, the tools they need to help themselves should they fall ill.
As temperatures swelled to 128 degrees, Death Valley National Park rangers got a call that a group of six motorcyclists were in distress. All available medics rushed to the scene, and rangers dispatched the park’s two ambulances.
It was an “all-hands-on-deck call,” said Spencer Solomon, Death Valley National Park’s emergency medical coordinator. The superheated air was too thin for an emergency helicopter to respond, but the team requested mutual aid from nearby fire departments.
They arrived Saturday to find one motorcyclist unresponsive, and medics labored unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. Another rider who had fallen unconscious was loaded into an ambulance, where emergency medical technicians attempted to rapidly cool the victim with ice as they transported him to an intensive care unit in Las Vegas. The four other motorcyclists were treated at the site and released.
With record heat blanketing California and much of the West recently, Death Valley has hit at least 125 degrees every day since the Fourth of July, and that streak isn’t likely to change until the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
Tourist Dave Hsu, left, feigns a chill as friend Tom Black takes a photograph at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center’s digital thermometer.
Extreme heat is both one of Death Valley’s greatest intrigues and its most serious safety concern. It’s not uncommon for a few people to die in the park from heatstroke in any given summer.
Located 200 feet below sea level and surrounded by steep, towering mountain ranges that trap heat, the valley is consistently among the hottest places on Earth.
In the summer, international travelers often schedule their trips without considering the weather. (All six of the men who fell victim to extreme temperatures near Badwater Basin on Saturday were from Germany.)
But even Southern California residents who are familiar with Death Valley’s hellish reputation will trek to the park just to experience the otherworldly heat.
“In L.A., people said, ‘No, don’t go out there; you’re crazy,’” said Nick Van Schaick, who visited the park early this week. He had spent the night in the nearby town of Beatty, Nev., then drove into the park at the crack of dawn Tuesday. “I don’t know. … There’s something compelling about this landscape.”
Visitors to Death Valley National Park drive in and out of the park on Highway 190 through the Panamint Valley, where temperatures were as high as 125 degrees recently.
Virtually all heat-related deaths are preventable, experts say, but what makes heat so dangerous is that it sneaks up on its victims.
The risk of Death Valley’s heat seems painfully obvious. It’s hard to miss the dozens of “Heat kills” signs throughout the park, and stepping out of a car there for the first time feels like sticking your face in an opened oven. Within seconds, your eyes begin to burn and your lips crack. Your skin feels completely dry — even though you’re sweating profusely, the sweat evaporates almost instantaneously.
But one of the first symptoms people experience as their core temperature begins to rise is confusion, which can inhibit a person’s ability to recognize that something is wrong or understand how to save themselves.
Studies have also shown that although almost everyone understands how to prevent heat illness, too few take action to protect themselves. That’s in part because many think they are uniquely able to handle the heat when in fact they are not. In 2021, a Death Valley visitor died from heat just days after another visitor had died on the same trail.
It’s a one-two punch. Hikers ignore the symptoms of heat exhaustion because they’re excited to hike or have nowhere else to go, said Bill Hanson, an instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates International and a flight paramedic in central Texas who specializes in heat-related emergencies. Then, “when a person reaches a pretty profound state of heat exhaustion — which by itself is not a lethal condition — and they’re still in that environment, the likelihood they’ll make the right decisions and reverse the process … is reduced because they have a reduced ability to make good decisions at all.”
One of the reasons that humans are quickly overcome by extreme heat is that there’s only one route for heat to exit the body. Blood carries heat from our core to our skin, and, when the breeze is too hot to carry heat away from us, the body can release it only through the evaporation of sweat. Any of that sweat that drips to the ground or is wiped off the face is a missed opportunity to cool down.
Visitors walk out onto the salt flats at Badwater Basin, taking advantage of cooler morning temperatures on a day when the mercury would rise as high as 125 degrees in Death Valley National Park.
In Death Valley, the air is so dry that sweat evaporates very easily, unlike in humid climates where the atmosphere contains more moisture. With profuse sweating, however, dehydration comes quickly. The park recommends visitors do their best to replenish lost water and drink at least a gallon a day if they’re spending time doing any physical activity outside.
But sweating and constant hydration will work only to a point.
“A 130-degree environment … there’s going to be a limited shelf life on a human body’s ability to exist in that environment without some technological support,” Hanson said.
Because of this, the park says to never hike after 10 a.m. during periods of extreme heat and recommends never straying more than five minutes away from the nearest air conditioning, whether it be in a car or building.
In the heat, sticking in groups can also save lives. While it might be difficult for a confused heat illness victim to recognize the symptoms or remember how to save themselves, friends can spot problems. In general, if you struggle to do anything that is normally easy for you — physically or mentally — stop to rest and seek cooler conditions immediately.
Muscle cramps are often the first sign the body is struggling to stay cool. They’re probably caused by a toxic concoction of dehydration, muscle fatigue and a lack of electrolytes like sodium, which are essential for chauffeuring water and nutrients throughout the body. Cramps are a sign that the body’s process for dumping heat is under stress.
Death Valley National Park visitor Steffi Meister, from Switzerland, photographs the landscape at Zabriskie Point where temperatures were as high as 125 degrees recently.
As the body struggles, heat exhaustion starts to set in. The brain, heart and other organs become tired from working to maintain the body’s typical temperature of 98 degrees. As the body passes 101 degrees, victims can start experiencing dizziness, confusion and headaches. It’s not uncommon for them to vomit, feel weak or even faint.
As the body passes 104 degrees, the entire central nervous system — responsible for regulating heat in the first place — can no longer handle the stress of the high temperatures. It starts to shut down. The victim might get so confused and disoriented that they no longer make sense. They might not even be able to communicate. They can start to have seizures and fall into a coma.
“To me, as a park medic, if you’re unresponsive, you’re going to the hospital,” Solomon said, “because your brain is essentially cooking.”
At this point, the heat has done irreversible damage that can leave the victim disabled for years to come. If internal temperatures don’t fall quickly, death becomes a very real possibility. Organs can fail within hours, killing the victim, even after their temperature starts to drop.
Heat illness can come on within just minutes or take hours to develop. “There’s kind of a weird phenomenon where there’s two times of day where we’ll get 911 calls for people who have fallen ill” due to heat sickness, Solomon said.
One is in the middle of the afternoon, when the heat is at its worst. The other is near 11 p.m. — visitors will feel OK during the day, but get increasingly dehydrated as they continue to exert themselves. “Then, they check into their hotel room and fall ill,” Solomon said.
In some extreme cases, heatstroke can overwhelm a person so fast that muscle cramps and other symptoms of heat exhaustion don’t have time to show. The Death Valley emergency response team typically gets about two or three heat illness calls per week in the summer, with visitors experiencing symptoms across the spectrum from mild fatigue to loss of consciousness.
Heatstroke experts overwhelmingly agree on the most effective treatment: cooling the patient as fast as possible.
“The key to survival is getting their body temperature under 104 within 30 minutes of the presentation of the condition,” said Douglas Casa, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and the chief executive of the Korey Stringer Institute, a leading voice in treating heatstrokes. “It’s 100% survivability if you do that, which is amazing because there’s not too many life-threatening emergencies in the world that have 100% survivability if treated correctly.”
The fastest way to cool a patient is a cool ice bath, experts say. Hanson said his team in Texas will fly an ice bath on a helicopter and cool the victim in the middle of the desert until their temperature stabilizes before the medics even transport them.
However, in Death Valley, getting an ice bath to victims can be nearly impossible. The hot air is so thin that the team can’t fly helicopters. Instead, they bring a body bag and cool the victim inside with ice and cool towels as they’re transported via ambulance.
Although emergencies are regular, the park says they are preventable, and if people follow park guidance, they can experience the heat safely.
“It really is a reason why some people come to visit — because this is one of the few places on Earth where you can feel what that level of heat feels like,” said supervisory park ranger Jennette Jurado. “It’s our job as park rangers to do our very best to make sure people can have these experiences and then go home safely at the end of the day and remember these experiences.”
Visitors take a late-afternoon swim in the pool at Furnace Creek, where temperatures lingered in the 120s inside Death Valley National Park.
For Jurado, a safe visit looks like taking refuge in air conditioning during the hottest parts of the day and experiencing the heat in short five-minute intervals. The vast majority of visitors take this approach. If they hike at all, it’s early in the morning, and the car never leaves their sight. The rest of the day, they spend hanging at the hotel or by the pool — or they leave the park.
Although it might be possible for someone to — wrongly — convince themselves that a 90-degree heat wave in the city won’t affect them personally, it’s much harder to do that in a Death Valley heat wave.
Ironically, this makes Jurado worry more about cooler days in the park, when visitors may not be most on guard. When hikers died within days of each other a few years back, it was an unseasonably cool 105 degrees in the park.
“It’s that level of heat where people are like, ‘Oh, it’s not Death Valley hot, I can hike longer — I can take more risks,’” Jurado said.
Los Angeles County health officials are investigating a reported case of hepatitis A in an employee of a Whole Foods supermarket in Beverly Hills and are warning of possible public exposure to the highly contagious liver infection.
Officials warned that anyone who purchased products from the seafood counter at the grocery store on Crescent Drive between April 20 and May 13 could be affected and urged those not already immune to hepatitis A to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
The virus has also recently been found among members of the county’s homeless population.
Hepatitis A is found in the stool and blood of those infected and can spread among people even before they have symptoms, which include fever, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, dark urine and yellowing of the eyes and skin.
“Receiving vaccination as soon as possible after exposure could help reduce the risk of developing hepatitis A infection,” the county Public Health Department said in a statement. “Residents should contact their local pharmacy or medical provider for the vaccine.”
Whole Foods said it was working closely with the department.
“The team member diagnosed is not working, and we are not aware of anyone else becoming ill,” the company said in a statement. “While we have strict food safety processes in place in our stores, we encourage anyone who believes they may have been exposed to follow the guidance of the health department.”
While no other infections have been reported related to the Whole Foods case, county health officials said this week that they have identified an outbreak of five hepatitis A cases since March among people who are homeless.
Officials said the risk to the general public is “low” but urged anyone who may have been exposed to check if they have been vaccinated.
Homeless people are at a higher risk for contracting the virus due to decreased access to hand washing and toilet facilities, officials said.
California’s last known hepatitis A outbreak occurred between 2016 and 2018, mostly among people experiencing homelessness or using drugs in settings with limited sanitation. In San Diego — which also experienced a hepatitis A outbreak in 2017 — health officials last year reported an uptick in cases among homeless people.
Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.
Fake versions of Botox have popped up in California, raising alarm among public health officials who warn that counterfeit versions of the injections can lead to symptoms such as slurred speech and breathing problems.
“Counterfeit or incorrectly administered Botox, even in small amounts, can result in serious health problems and even death,” Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, director of the California Department of Public Health, warned in a statement Wednesday.
Botox, or botulinum toxin, is used cosmetically to temporarily smooth fine lines on the face. It has also been employed to treat medical conditions such as muscle spasms. The product is derived from a toxin produced by bacteria.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 22 people from 11 states had reported harmful reactions such as weakness and blurry vision after getting injections, landing some of them in the hospital. They had gotten their injections from unlicensed or untrained people or outside of healthcare settings, such as in a home or spa, according to the federal agency.
So far, there is no indication that such problems were linked to the genuine Botox product approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration, health officials said. Instead, regulators have found that some patients received counterfeit Botox products or ones from unverified sources. Investigations are underway.
“We’re not even sure what it really is,” but it’s not Botox, said Dr. Adam Friedman, chair of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
And “when you have an injectable agent that is not what it claims to be, has no quality assurance, no oversight … there could be a whole bunch of different things that come along for the ride,” including bacteria or allergens.
Because the health effects could be delayed, “I don’t think we’ve actually scratched the surface yet” of possible consequences from injecting an unknown substance into the body, Friedman said.
The California Department of Public Health said that since a multistate investigation launched in November, it had received two reports of harmful reactions to counterfeit or mishandled botulinum toxin, which were included in the total figure reported nationally by the CDC.
Under California law, Botox can be injected only by a physician, or by a registered nurse or physician assistant working under the supervision of a doctor. But state law “does not restrict where Botox treatments may be performed,” according to the Medical Board of California. In a statement, Aragón urged people to get Botox injections only from “licensed and trained professionals in healthcare settings.”
Public health officials also advised consumers to check with healthcare providers that they were getting Botox from “an authorized source” and to ask if they were licensed and trained to administer the injections.
“If in doubt, do not get the injection,” the public health department urged.
Aragón also stressed that Botox should never be purchased online or through “unlicensed individuals.” Dr. Debra Johnson, former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said that online sellers abroad have been creating “pirated Botox,” putting it in similar packaging, and then selling it to anyone who will pay.
Physicians have been getting emails and faxes saying, “‘We’ve got Botox for cheaper, we’ve got filler for cheaper’ — and it’s all these unregulated places that don’t have any FDA oversight,” Johnson said. Responsible doctors know that’s illegal, she said, but “I’m sure there’s some people who would hop at the chance.”
Botox is manufactured by AbbVie Inc. The California Department of Public Health said that outer cartons of the genuine product include product descriptions for either “BOTOX® COSMETIC / onabotulinumtoxinA / for Injection” or “OnabotulinumtoxinA / BOTOX® / for injection” and list the manufacturer as either “Allergan Aesthetics / An AbbVie Company” or “abbvie.” They also list the active ingredient as “OnabotulinumtoxinA.”
Fake products might show the active ingredient as “Botulinum Toxin Type A,” include languages other than English, or indicate 150-unit doses, according to the California Department of Public Health. (AbbVie manufactures real Botox products in 50-, 100- and 200-unit dose forms, federal officials said.) Another tipoff to a fake product is the lot number “C3709C3” on packaging or vials, regulators have advised.
Thankfully, “there’s some really key, distinct features on this fake Botox that distinguish it from the real thing, which has not been contaminated,” Friedman said. If a consumer is concerned, “there’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘Hey, can I check out the box?’”
In general, if “something seems to be too good to be true” or “it seems like a bargain when it comes to your health, those should be signals to run,” he said.
Anyone suffering symptoms from counterfeit Botox — which are similar to the effects of botulism poisoning from improperly canned foods — should contact a medical professional or go immediately to an emergency room, CDPH said. Symptoms can include drooping eyelids, trouble swallowing, fatigue, weakness and difficulty breathing.
Fake Botox products can be reported to the FDA through its website or by calling (800) 551-3989. In California, people can also tip off the California Department of Public Health by submitting a consumer complaint.
A recently arrived traveler at Los Angeles International Airport is the source of the first case of measles in L.A. County since 2020.
Measles is a highly infectious disease, and health experts say the best way to evade infection is immunization.
The Los Angeles resident was a passenger on a Turkish Airlines flight that arrived at 5 p.m. Jan. 25 at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, Gate 157. Anyone who was at Terminal B from 5 to 9 p.m. may have been exposed and could be at risk of developing measles.
L.A. public health officials are notifying Turkish Airlines passengers who sat close to this flier about possible measles exposure.
The measles virus can live in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the area, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which works with the L.A. Department of Public Health to investigate communicable disease exposure on international flights to the U.S.
Following the flight, the infected person made a stop at a Northridge Chick-fil-A.
Patrons who were at the restaurant at 18521 Devonshire St. between 8 and 10:30 p.m. may be at risk of developing measles, county health officials said.
Additional locations where possible exposures may have occurred are being investigated by the health department.
“Measles is spread by air and by direct contact,” said Muntu Davis, Los Angeles County health officer, in a news release. “Even before you know it, you have it, and [it] can lead to severe disease.”
Those who haven’t been immunized against measles, or are not sure whether they’ve had the vaccine, and were at these sites during the date and times listed above are at risk of developing measles. Symptoms appear from seven to 21 days after exposure to the virus. Those who have been free of symptoms for more than 21 days are no longer at risk.
The CDC reported a recent rise in domestic measles cases. Between Dec. 1 and Jan. 23, the agency was notified of 23 confirmed U.S. cases of measles, including seven direct importations of measles by international travelers and two outbreaks with more than five cases each.
If you think you were exposed
Public health officials recommend:
Review your immunization and medical records to determine whether you’re protected against measles. People who have not had measles infection or received the measles immunization previously may not be protected from the virus and should talk with a healthcare provider about receiving the measles, mumps and rubella immunization.
Contact and notify your healthcare provider as soon as possible about a potential exposure if you’re pregnant, if you have an unvaccinated infant who may have been exposed or if you have a weakened immune system.
Monitor yourself for illness: a fever and/or an unexplained rash from seven days to 21 days after exposure.
If symptoms develop, stay at home and avoid school, work and any large gatherings. Call a healthcare provider immediately. Do not enter a healthcare facility before calling and making the provider aware of your measles exposure and symptoms.
The best way to prevent measles infection is by getting the MMR vaccine, which covers measles, mumps and rubella. Children need two vaccine doses, one when they are 12 to 15 months old and the second between the ages of 4 and 6. Teenagers and adults who have not yet been immunized need one dose.
How measles can spread
The virus is highly contagious and lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person, according to the CDC. It can spread through coughing and sneezing.
The CDC says the virus is so contagious that if one person has it, up to 90% of the people who are not immune and are in close proximity to that person will also become infected.
Measles can also spread when other people breathe the contaminated air or touch an infected surface, then touch their eyes, nose or mouth.
The infection can be spread four days before symptoms begin or four days after signs of the virus.
Measles symptoms
The first symptoms of measles infection will appear in seven to 14 days of contracting the infection.
We know measles as a rash on the skin, but it can be dangerous especially for babies and young children. Measles typically begins with high fever (which could spike to more than 104 degrees), cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes.
Two to three days after symptoms begin, tiny white spots may appear inside the mouth.
In three to five days after having symptoms of measles infection, a rash breaks out. It usually begins as flat red spots that appear on the face and at the hairline, then spreads downward to the back, trunk, arms, legs and feet.
A case of locally acquired dengue, a virus transmitted by mosquitoes, was detected in Pasadena on Friday, according to the Pasadena Public Health Department.
The instance is “extremely rare,” officials said, with the afflicted person being the first known case in California among someone who had not recently traveled.
Symptoms of dengue can range from mild to severe and include fever, skin rash, headaches and muscle and joint pain, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Severe cases can be life-threatening and require critical care. Most cases resolve within two to seven days.
In a statement, Pasadena epidemiologist Dr. Matthew Feaster said public health officials have been monitoring for mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue.
“Our work so far, in partnership with the Vector Control District, gives us confidence that this was likely an isolated incident and that there is very low risk of additional dengue exposure in Pasadena,” Feaster said.
Public health officials presume the victim, who is unidentified and said to be recovering, probably caught the disease from a mosquito that had bitten someone already infected with dengue. Dengue is rare in the United States but endemic to other countries and can be transmitted by travelers to areas where dengue is found.
In response to the case, public health officials have visited the neighborhood where the case was diagnosed to inform residents about preventing bites from Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, which transmits the disease and has seen a population boom in Southern California.
The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District has also deployed traps and test samples, though they have yet to identify any specimens carrying dengue. Tests will continue for the next few weeks, Pasadena officials said.
Dengue has no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat the disease. Care for dengue cases includes rest, drinking fluids and closely monitoring symptoms.
