Date: Fri 21-Jul-1995
Date: Fri 21-Jul-1995
Publication: Hea
Author: CURT
Illustration: I
Quick Words:
Lyme-disease-ticks-fatal
Full Text:
Lyme Ticks Can Also
Carry A Second, Fatal Illness
NEW YORK (AP) - The tick that carries Lyme disease also carries a recently
identified illness that has stricken at least 60 people and killed four
nationwide, according to The New York Times.
The bacterial illness is easily treatable, but responds to only one type of
antibiotic, while Lyme disease responds to several, the Times said, citing
medical researchers.
Researchers described the disease - human granulocytic ehrlichiosis, or HGE
-in an article in July 1994 in the Journal of the American Medical
Association. They said it was spread by ticks and speculated that the deer
tick, which carries Lyme disease, was the type of tick responsible.
HGE can produce more severe flu-like symptoms than Lyme disease and diagnosing
it can be more difficult.
Lyme disease often is signaled by a telltale circular rash around the site of
a tick bite. HGE usually hits unannounced, multiplying inside white blood
cells and then typically causing a sudden fever, chills, headaches and muscle
aches. "With HGE, you can go from wellness to a really severe, debilitating
disease within hours," said Dr Johan Bakken, an infectious disease specialist
at the Duluth Clinic in Duluth, Minn. "You feel like someone worked you over
with a bat."
About 60 cases have been confirmed nationwide so far, but dozens of other
cases of illness from tick bites fit the pattern, said Dr. J. Stephen Dumler,
a pathologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who is
analyzing the DNA of bacteria isolated from tick-bite patients.
Four people have been known to die from the new infection, the Times said. In
contrast, federal health officials have yet to document a single death out of
tens of thousands of cases of Lyme disease, according to the newspaper.
Dr Bakken first identified the disease in 1991, in patients from Wisconsin and
Minnesota, states that have reported many cases of Lyme disease and the deer
tick that carries it.
At least a dozen cases of HGE have been reported in the last several weeks in
the suburbs north of New York City.