MEDICS have issued a warning as cases of a rare tick-borne infection have soared.
Infections babesiosis have ‘significantly increased’ in eight North-eastern US states in recent years, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed.
Babesiosis cases rose significantly between 2011 and 2019, the CDC found
Most babesiosis cases are caused by tiny parasites spread by blacklegged ticks, called Ixodes scapularis.
A bite from the tick can infect your red blood cells.
People can also catch it from contaminated blood transfusions, and organ transplants from infected donors, and it can spread to babies from their mothers.
Most people who get babesiosis will have mild or no symptoms – but people with weaker immune systems are at greater risk of becoming very ill. In some cases, it can be fatal.
Between 2011 and 2019, 37 US states reported 16,456 cases of babesiosis to the CDC, according to the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report – but more than 98 per cent of these cases were reported by 10 states.
The CDC zeroed in on those states and saw a ‘significant’ increase in infections in eight of them: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
And the tick borne parasite is also regularly infecting people in places it didn’t before.
The American health body said that babesiosis is newly endemic in three out of the eight states it flagging, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Vermont’s rate rose from two cases in 2011 to 34 in 2019, while New Hampshire’s increased from 13 to 63 and Maine’s leapt from 9 to 138.
‘Endemic’ refers to when a disease is consistently spreading but is contained in particular regions.
This is different from a ‘pandemic’, which refers to when a disease’s growth rate skyrockets and cuts across international boundaries.
Babesiosis was already considered endemic to the first seven states prior to 2011.
The results lead the CDC to urge people in the 10 states and those bordering them to be aware of the signs and symptoms of the disease.
It also noted that the expansion of babesiosis risk could have implications for the blood supply, as people ‘who acquire [it] through contaminated blood have been shown to have significantly worse health outcomes and a higher risk for death than do those who acquire the disease from a tick bite’.
“Persons spending time outdoors in states with endemic babesiosis should practice tick bite prevention, including wearing long pants, avoiding underbrush and long grass, and using tick repellents,” the report’s author’s said.
Signs of babenosis and how to be ‘tick aware’
Most people with babesiosis will have either no symptoms or mild symptoms of infection, the CDC states.
But people people with weakened immune systems can become very ill.
They might present with flu-like symptoms such as:
fever
chills
muscle ache
fatigue
jaundice
In rare cases, babesiosis can be deadly. According to the CDC, those at risk of serious infections include:
older people
people with weakened immune systems
those with serious conditions like liver or kidney disease
people without a spleen
To be reduce your risk of being bitten you should:
keep to footpaths and avoid long grass when out walking
wear a long-sleeved shirt and trousers tucked into your socks
considering the use of repellents containing DEET
carry out a tick check regularly when you’re outdoors and when you get home
if bitten by a tick, remove it as soon as possible using fine tipped tweezers or a tick removal tool – grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and pull upwards slowly and firmly. Then wash your skin with water and soap, and apply an antiseptic cream to the skin around the bite
There have been cases of babesiosis in the UK before.
Public Health England (now merged into the UK Health Security Agency) reported that someone in Devon had been diagnosed with babesiosis in July 2020 – it was the first time the rare infection had been acquired on UK soil.
You should contact your GP promptly if you feel unwell and remember to tell them you were bitten by a tick or recently spent time outdoors.
Hot weather tends to be the best breeding ground for ticks.
Ticks are hard to spot until you have been bitten and see a dark lump — likely painless at first, as the bite contains mild anaesthetic.
They range from pinhead to marble size, growing as they suck your blood.
If bitten, you could also be at risk of Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that can cause a lifetime of debilitating symptoms.