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.