SUNDAY, Oct. 13, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Haven't yet heard of babesiosis, a potentially deadly infection transmitted by ticks?
Chances are good you will.
Fatal in about 5 percent of cases, the blood-borne illness is transmitted by the same tick that gave us Lyme disease. In most cases, the parasite causes mild flu-like symptoms, such as aches and fever lasting for about a week.
However, some victims end up on life support.
"It's the same tick, but a different bug," says Andrew Spielman, a
professor of tropical public health at Harvard University's School of Public Health. "The severity of the illness increases with age and immune system
status."
Basically, babesiosis (pronounced bab-EE-see-OH-sis) causes a destruction of red blood cells, which can lead to moderate to severe anemia.
"The health impact is not insignificant," says Dr. Peter Krause, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine who has studied the disease. "Some 25 percent [of victims] have no symptoms and 75 percent have symptoms from mild to death. We also know that this can be transmitted through the blood supply."
That has health officials worried. More than 30 cases of blood-transmitted babesiosis have been identified, some resulting in mild symptoms, and some in more severe illness comparable to malaria, Krause says.
Krause and some colleagues recently did a study looking at the risk of babesiosis transmission through the blood supply. They took blood from 155 cardiac patients both before and after surgery. No one developed the antibody for Lyme disease, but one person did develop the babesiosis antibody, indicating they'd been infected with the parasite.
From an infectious diseases point of view, that's not inconsequential, he says.
The Red Cross is not taking blood from people who have had the disease, and is considering conducting a screening of the nation's blood supply. Although most people have no trace of the parasite after three months, Krause says, some carry it for longer. One man had it in his blood for two years.
"These people who are asymptomatically infected can give blood not realizing they are infected," Krause says.
There may be many more infected people than health officials realize.
The disease is an ancient one, probably millions of years old. The first
reference is thought to be in a passage from Exodus in the Bible: "Behold,
the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the
horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep:
there shall be a very grievous murrain." Here, "murrain" seems to refer to what we know as babesiosis, Krause says.
The disease was first discovered and described as an organism that
broke down red blood cells in cattle by Victor Babes in Romania in 1883. The first human case was described in 1957 when a Yugoslavian farmer contracted the disease from a tick and died.
In 1969, a Nantucket, Mass., woman acquired an infection that was initially misdiagnosed as malaria. Later, it was identified as rodent babesia. In 1973, a friend and neighbor of the woman also became ill with similar symptoms.
It was at this time that Spielman visited Nantucket and spoke to all the physicians on the island about the disease. The next year, a newly educated medical community reported five or six cases.
Right now, the disease is primarily limited to the Northeast -- especially southern Connecticut, New York's Long Island and coastal islands such as Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and Block Island -- and the northern Midwest.
However, like Lyme disease, its spread to other regions is inevitable because of the rise in the deer population. In fact, some cases have been reported as far west as California.
"Every year we are getting more deer and they are more suburbanized. And it's just increasing as we speak," Spielman says.
"Deer provide a sort of shelter, a blood meal for the
(ticks') adult stage," he adds. "We call the deer traveling motels because that's where the ticks also have babies."
Babesiosis is more insidious than Lyme disease because it's more
difficult to recognize and diagnose. Lyme usually presents with a red rash.
Babesiosis is associated with a flu-like illness that is similar to the
symptoms caused by many viral infections, Lyme disease or West Nile virus. Only a laboratory can make a firm diagnosis, Krause says.
The disease is treated with a combination of antibiotics. In extreme
cases, doctors will perform an exchange transfusion, replacing a person's entire blood supply.
Prevention strategies are the same as for Lyme disease.
Keep your grass cut short -- ticks love tall grass. Avoid walking through tall glass. Also, wear long sleeves, long pants and tick repellant with DEET when you go outside. Do a "tick check" when you come back indoors. Light-colored clothing can make such checks easier.
Finally, don't underestimate the tick population. One deer can carry hundreds, even thousands, of ticks.
Even if a tick isn't carrying the Lyme or babesia parasite, you don't want to be near one.
"These diseases are out there, and almost certainly this tick is carrying something we don't know about yet," Krause says. "It's just a matter of serendipity as to what is found."
What To Do
For more information on babesiosis, visit the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases or the
New York State Department of Health.
