Powassan Virus Kills Woman, 2nd Such Tick-Borne Infection In Connecticut In 2022

Connecticut has now had two in 2022. That’s two confirmed cases of people being infected with the Powassan virus. The first one was a man in his 50’s who ended up being hospitalized for central nervous badness before fortunately subsequently recovering. The second was just confirmed by the Connecticut Department of Public Health: a women in her 90’s who unfortunately didn’t survive the tick-transmitted infection.

The woman had an encounter with a tick sometime in April. And ticks really bite and suck, literally and figuratively. A tick carrying the Powassan virus only needs 15 minutes or so to transmit the virus to someone it is biting. Two weeks after the tick was removed from her body, the woman began feeling ill. Eventually, her symptoms, which included fevers, headaches, chills, shakes, chest pain, nausea, and altered mental status, led to her being admitted to a local hospital. She lapsed into a coma and then eventually died on May 17.

Of course, two is not a super high number, unless you are talking about wooly mammoths in your bathroom. Powassan virus infections are still quite rare with a total of 12 reported cases in Connecticut from 2017 to 2021, two of them resulting in deaths. In the decade from 2011 through 2020, the number of reported cases of neuroinvasive disease from the Powassan virus fluctuated from a low of six in 2015 to a high of 39 in 2019, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The question, though, is whether these potentially life-threatening infections may be getting a little less rare. Last year, 2021, there were three confirmed Powassan virus illnesses in the “Constitution State.” This year there have already been two such cases with plenty of tick, tick, ticks still left in tick season. Typically, May through July is the peak of tick season, although a second peak can occur in the Fall. In theory, though, any season could be tick season, as ticks are increasingly hanging around all year, which really bites.

Moreover, the number of reported Powassan virus cases may be just the “tick” of the iceberg, so to speak. Not everyone infected will end up developing symptoms. And when symptoms do occur, they may be no more than mild flu-like symptoms. Such cases could very well go unrecognized and unreported. Thus, the virus could be getting more widespread without public health officials even knowing it.

Naturally, the asymptomatic and mild cases aren’t the biggest concern. As demonstrated by the two cases in Connecticut this year, the virus can do a real number of your central nervous system. And you need your central nervous systems to do important stuff like take selfies. As I covered for Forbes a year ago, in some cases, a Powassan virus infection can progress to meningitis, which is inflammation of the membranes that wrap around the brain and spinal cord or encephalitis, which is when the brain itself gets inflamed. Of course, if you were to choose which part of your body you would want inflamed, your brain and membranes wrapping your brain would rank near the bottom of the list. Such inflammation could lead to a host of neurological problems and potentially death. The Connecticut Department of Public Health announcement indicated that “about one out of 10 cases of severe illness are fatal and approximately half of survivors experience long-term health problems.”

Since there is currently no vaccine against the Powassan virus and no specific treatment, the best way to deal with the virus is to not get it in the first place. That means avoiding ticks. Three types of ticks can carry the Powassan virus. Two of them Ixodes cookei, otherwise known as the groundhog tick, and Ixodes marxi, otherwise known as the squirrel tick, don’t tend to bite humans. So unless you are a giant groundhog, you don’t have to worry about these two types of ticks as much. But oh deer, it’s the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), otherwise known blacklegged tick, that likes to bite humans and can give you the Powassan virus.

Such ticks tend to hang out in grassy, brushy, or wooded areas. Therefore, it would be good to cancel your lying-naked-in-the-brush party, especially if you are in Eastern U.S. where the deer tick is more common. Spraying yourself with insect repellants, such as those containing DEET ( N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide), can help repel ticks. So can treating your clothing and other gear with products containing 0.5 percent permethrin. But such things won’t serve as impenetrable full-body condoms. You should still be careful and try to avoid really ticked off places.

And regularly check yourself and others for ticks whenever you’ve been outdoors in places that may have ticks. Of course, ask before you check others for ticks. Saying after the fact, “oh, sorry, I was just checking for ticks,” usually doesn’t come off too well. Showering can help, in general, but also with dislodging any ticks from your body. You should check your clothes as well, assuming that you wear clothes outside.

While reported human cases of Powassan virus infections are currently rather rare, the tick population in the U.S. has continued to grow. Climate change has led to warmer temperatures that are more tick-friendly, allowing ticks to expand their habitats, as described by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Climate and Health Assessment. And that’s not good news, assuming that you aren’t a giant tick. It’s one thing for something to go viral on TikTok. It’s another thing for whole lot more ticks to be around to make more humans go viral with pathogens like the Powassan virus.

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