 | | | | Related Healthscout Videos | |
|
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Wearing light-colored clothing, removing any ticks as soon as they are found and keeping pets free of ticks can also reduce the risk, Tavakoli added.
Deer tick virus is closely related to Powassan virus, which can also cause encephalitis and is also transmitted by way of the deer tick, according to background information in the study. Both are flaviviruses, a group that includes West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis virus, dengue and yellow fever viruses, all of which are transmitted by mosquitoes.
Infection with one of these viruses sometimes causes severe illness, some combination of milder symptoms, or no illness at all. Deer ticks also transmit Lyme disease, which is now widespread in the United States.
Text Continues Below
In the New York case, a 62-year-old man from Putnam County, N.Y., arrived at a local hospital in spring of 2007 complaining of fatigue, fever, rash and muscle weakness.
Doctors first suspected West Nile virus, but analysis of tissue samples eventually came up positive for deer tick virus only.
The patient spent a good deal of time outdoors, owned horses and lived in a county with many reports of Lyme disease, indicating a large tick population. Although the man had not reported any tick bites, the time of the year was right for such an event, and many deer ticks are so small as to remain undetected.
Unfortunately, the man's condition continued to deteriorate, life support was withdrawn, and the man, who also had leukemia and therefore possibly a weakened immune system, died 17 days after he fell ill.
In general, Welch said, encephalitis cases of any sort are few, and labs are not usually able to identify the source, unless it is the herpes simplex virus.
"Since no one has been testing, we really don't know the incidence of deer tick virus, but it can't be very high, because we don't have many cases of encephalitis," he said. "What happens in the future will depend on how many ticks get infected, how easy it is to transmit to people and what percent of people infected get severe disease. It could be that people with normal immune systems are relatively resistant."
More information
Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on tick-borne encephalitis.
Page: << Prev | 1 | 2
|
.gif)
