WASHINGTON — Lyme disease makes the headlines, but there are plenty of additional reasons to avoid tick bites. New research highlights a growing list of tick-borne threats.
Monday’s 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.
The first U.S. case of the new infection was reported in 2013 in New Jersey, an 80-year-old cancer survivor who over four months became increasingly confused, had difficulty walking and lost 30 pounds. 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 treatable by antibiotics — the woman recovered — doctors know little about B. miyamotoi.
Two new tick-borne viruses were discovered in the Midwest. 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, said CDC entomologist Roger Nasci. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, headaches, aches, diarrhea and low blood counts.
Identified in Missouri, the virus also was reported in Tennessee and Oklahoma, although the Lone Star tick that spreads it lives around the East and Southeast.
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. Another patient, in Oklahoma, recovered.
