Maine People, Visitors Urged to ‘Take Measures Now’ Due to Rising Cases of Brain-Infecting Disease Powassan

Various news outlets recently reported that a rare horror disease that infects a person's brain and can cause severe symptoms is currently on the rise in the United States.

The Daily Express reported that the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that one person already died following infection from the "tick-borne Powassan virus."

Health officials said the virus is transmitted through the bite of an infected deer tick, squirrel tick, or groundhog tick and cases appear to be on the rise.

The CDC report specified there were only 44 cases from 2011 to 2015. However, from 2016 to 2020, there have been 134 incidents reported.

Tick-Borne Diseases Doubling in Number Through the Years

Annual cases of all tick-borne diseases reported to the health agency more than doubled from 2004 to 2019, rising from over 22,500 to more than 50,000 in 2019, The World News specified in a similar report.

Based on a paper published in the CDC journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases in 2021, the CDC figures are also possibly vastly under-reported.

According to the director of the Maine CDC, Nirav Shah, ticks are active and searching for a "host to bite" at the moment.

He added, he's urging both the people and visitors of Maine to take steps that avert tick bites. A lot of people who are infected with Powassan will not have any symptoms and will be perfectly fine.

Nonetheless, some can develop severe infection of the brain, or of the membranes that surround the spinal cord and brain.

Symptoms

Symptoms of these possibly severe conditions may include confusion, difficulty speaking, seizures, and loss of coordination.

The CDC also reported that the death rate for this virus is around 10 percent. In this case, reported in Maine, the patient developed neurologic symptoms and eventually died while at the hospital.

The rise in Powassan virus cases in the country in recent years has been associated with the expansion of the range of deer ticks due to climate change.

Early this year, more than 90 percent of ticks tested in the Lawrence Township Recreational Park, in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, were discovered to have been carrying the rare and possibly deadly Deer Tick Virus.

To compare, the highest infection rate documented previously at a single site in Pennsylvania was just 11 percent, and for the entire US approximately 25 percent.

Why Ticks Are Spreading Many Diseases

According to a Live Science report, "there's a long list diseases" one can get from a tick bite, which includes some that can actually kill.

In fact, the small "bloodsucking critters" can spread a wider variety of bacteria, parasites, and viruses that any other arthropod, a classification that comprises not just ticks but insects as well, like mosquitoes, among others.

Research biologist Rebecca Eisen, from the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne Disease in Fort Collins, Colorado said more than 80 tick species are found in the US, and about a dozen of these can bite humans, not to mention, are considered medically essential.

In addition, infections from tick-borne diseases in the country are rising steadily, and the geographic range of ticks that spread diseases is expanding, as well.

Treatment

Since most people infected with the Powassan virus do not develop any symptoms, the disease does not need a specific treatment.

Nevertheless, people suffering from severe Powassan virus will frequently need hospital confinement to be provided with intravenous fluids, respiratory support, and medications to alleviate swelling in the brain.

Related information about the Powassan virus is shown on NBC News's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Ticks on Science Times.