Lyme disease not the only tick threat
INFECTIOUS DISEASE: The latest research highlights a growing list of very nasty tick-borne illnesses
WASHINGTON — Lyme disease makes the headlines, but there are plenty of additional reasons to avoid tick bites.
New research highlights the latest in a growing list of tick-borne threats — a distant relative of Lyme that’s easy to confuse with other illnesses.
A study suggests a kind of bacteria with an unwieldy name — Borrelia miyamotoi — should be on the radar when people in Lyme-endemic areas get otherwise unexplained summertime fevers.
It’s one of several recently discovered diseases linked to ticks in different areas, a reminder to get tick-savvy no matter where you live.
“People need to be aware of what tick-borne diseases are in their area,” says Dr. Peter J. Krause of Yale University, a specialist who reviewed the research. “And they should know how to avoid ticks.”
In 2013 an 80-year-old cancer survivor in New Jersey became increasingly confused, had difficulty walking and lost 30 pounds over four months.
Doctors found spiral-shaped bacteria in her spinal fluid that looked like Lyme but caused a relapsing fever more closely related to some other tick-borne illnesses.
While B. miyamotoi is treatable by antibiotics — the woman recovered — doctors know little about it.
The latest study offers some clues. Researchers with Imugen Inc., a Massachusetts testing lab, tested blood samples from patients in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York whose doctors suspected tick-borne illnesses.
During the 2013 and 2014 tick seasons the lab found 97 cases of the new infection. That’s roughly 1 per cent of samples tested and close to the lab’s detection of a better-known tick disease named anaplasmosis, researchers reported in Annals of Internal Medicine.
More research is needed to determine just how prevalent the disease is.
Researchers then analyzed medical records from 51 of those patients, and found symptoms typically include a high fever, severe headache, chills and blood abnormalities — decreases in infection-fighting and blood-clotting cells.
About a quarter of patients were hospitalized, although Imugen medical director Dr. Philip Molloy cautioned that’s probably because doctors are seeking testing only for their sickest, most puzzling patients.
The bacterium is carried by deer ticks, also known as blacklegged ticks, which also can spread Lyme and two other illnesses, babesiosis and anaplasmosis.
Two new tick-borne viruses were recently discovered in the U.S. Midwest, and neither has a specific treatment.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed nine cases of Heartland virus, and one death, with other reports under investigation. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, diarrhea and low blood counts.
Then there’s the Bourbon virus, with similar symptoms, discovered last year after the death of a Kansas man and named for his home county. He had found an embedded tick days before getting sick, and CDC researchers are searching for the culprit species.