Genital Herpes At The Coachella Festival?

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The Coachella festival that just ended in California will go down in history this year not for its fabulous stars or its VIP assistants, but for an alleged outbreak of herpes that according to sources reached 250 cases reported daily on its 9 days of festivities.

According to managers of the HerpAlert app, there was a dramatic increase in the number of inquiries from users regarding genital herpes symptoms.

This app connects patients directly with doctors for a quick and private diagnosis. Company spokespeople told CBS station in Los Angeles that they typically deal with 12 cases of the disease per day, but that since the start of the festival, on April 9, reports skyrocketed with about 250 inquiries daily.

In total, 1,105 cases of herpes were reported by this route during the festival that takes place annually in the Indio Valley. Genital herpes is a sexually transmitted disease and is not curable. According to reports from the Center for Communicable Diseases (CDC), more than one in 6 Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have been infected with the disease. Among the symptoms of this chronic and sexually transmitted disease are sores on the thighs, buttocks and genitals that are extremely uncomfortable.

Dr. Lynn Marie Morsk, medical director at HerpAlert told Newsweek that Coachella is typically an environment where herpes outbreaks can arise for various reasons. "Coachella, like any summer music festival, combines different factors that increase both the contagion and the accentuation of its symptoms in both oral and genital herpes," she said. "[Those factors] may be lack of sleep, more time in the sun, and intimate contact between people."

However, Jose Arballo, an affiliate of the Riverside Department of Public Health told Billboard that his agency has seen no evidence of the alleged herpetic outbreak. "I contacted our laboratories, the CDC and our programs to control the HIV [virus] and sexually transmitted diseases, and none of them reported increases in herpes cases," said the official, whose work works directly at the site where he is being taken. held the festival.