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New deadly illness discovered in Kansas: Tick-borne disease named the 'Bourbon Virus' is believed to be behind mysterious demise of farmer.
Researchers have identified a new tick-borne illness believed to be the cause of a Kansas man's death this summer. The Centers for Disease Control are investigating a new disease being named the Bourbon Virus that doctors struggled to identify for months.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/837229
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WPTV reports that a patient entered the University of Kansas Medical Center with symptoms like those of other diseases carried by ticks. In spite of the symptoms, John Seested, 68, tested negative for known tick-borne illnesses, according to the Fort Scott Tribune.
'It was very frustrating,' Dr Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease physician at the hospital told WPTV about the uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis. 'That's one of the biggest problems with my job, which I love, when we can't answer those questions, when we can't help the patients or their families.'
The man did not respond to treatment, according to Dr Hawkinson, and soon went into multiple organ failure and died.
There is still no vaccine for this newly discovered illness, though researchers say they're pressing ahead to look at how to fight the disease. 'This may be a cause of other people's illness as well and those will be steps we're going to be looking at with the CDC too,' Hawkinson said.
The medical mystery began late last spring, when the patient was admitted to the hospital with a high fever, muscle aches and loss of appetite. He worked outdoors and often had tick bites.
That history and his symptoms, combined with abnormal results on blood tests — his liver enzymes were too high, his platelets and white cells too low — made doctors suspect tick-borne diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever or ehrlichiosis. But tests for those illnesses came back negative.
There is still no vaccine for this newly discovered illness, though researchers say they're pressing ahead to look at how to fight the disease. 'This may be a cause of other people's illness as well and those will be steps we're going to be looking at with the CDC too,' Hawkinson said.
The medical mystery began late last spring, when the patient was admitted to the hospital with a high fever, muscle aches and loss of appetite. He worked outdoors and often had tick bites.
That history and his symptoms, combined with abnormal results on blood tests — his liver enzymes were too high, his platelets and white cells too low — made doctors suspect tick-borne diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever or ehrlichiosis. But tests for those illnesses came back negative.
Dr. Hawkinson suspected another, recently discovered tick-borne illness caused by the Heartland virus and sent blood samples to the C.D.C. for testing. But those tests also came back negative.
Researchers at the C.D.C. noticed that something else seemed to be growing in the samples that were tested for the Heartland virus, and they eventually identified the Bourbon virus.
The Bourbon virus is a type of thogoto virus, which is in the orthomyxoviridae family of RNA viruses. Although most closely related to viral genomes that only are found in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, this is the first time that a thogotovirus has been identified in the Western Hemisphere.
None of the related viruses in those regions, however, have been identified as a cause of human disease.
Sources
RELATED
THE NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES - NTDs -
Besides Ebola there are numerous dangerous tropical diseases that don't get enough funding or media coverage - Many of them affect Central America and the southern US - 12 million Americans are already afflicted, and 1 billion world wide.
Read more
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/10/the-neglected-tropical-diseases-ntds.html
More articles on microbes on this blog
http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/search/label/Microbes
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