Picture this: a dozen adventurous relatives from Georgia, Texas, and Washington, bound by blood and a love for exploring, descend into the mysterious Venado Caves of Costa Rica.
They’re there for an unforgettable family bonding experience just before the New Year. What they didn’t plan on? Bringing home a lung-rattling parting gift courtesy of a microscopic menace hiding in bat poop.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounded the alarm on January 17, 2025, after a Georgia-based infectious disease doc connected the dots. The puzzle pieces? A suspicious batch of flu-like symptoms, a bat cave, and a fungal infection that most people can’t pronounce on the first try — histoplasmosis.
Twelve out of the thirteen family members had taken the cave tour from December 21–28. All twelve — six adults aged 42–49 and six kids between 8–16 — got hit with it.
Fever, night sweats, headaches, muscle aches, gut trouble, chest pain. You name it. One adult even ended up hospitalized after doctors mistook the infection for a possible “lung cancer diagnosis”. That’s how intense histoplasmosis can get.
Histoplasmosis is caused by inhaling spores from the “Histoplasma” fungus, which loves to hang out in bird and bat droppings — perfect conditions in a cave full of winged night dwellers. And while most cases are mild and resolve on their own, they can still pack a punch and, yes, be misdiagnosed as much more terrifying conditions.
Interestingly, this isn’t Venado’s first dance with histoplasmosis. The same cave was tied to a 1998–1999 outbreak that sidelined 51 other adventurers. So yeah, this is more than a freak incident — it’s a pattern.
After the cluster of cases, the CDC issued a national alert to public health departments via the Epidemic Information Exchange. They’ve teamed up with the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica and the Costa Rican Ministry of Health to slap new health warnings and waiver updates onto cave tours, letting folks know: “if you’re spelunking in Venado, you’re also spelunking with spores.”
In March 2025, the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica even issued a formal health alert. A fungal infection isn’t the kind of thing you want to learn about “after” the fact — especially not when it leads to emergency rooms and a boatload of stress.
All twelve infected family members made a full recovery within a month of exposure. No lasting effects, no major complications — just a cautionary tale they’ll be retelling at family reunions for years to come.
