Do we need to get ready for the next pandemic? Is it time to wash your hands repeatedly, stop touching your face with your hands and tape every door and window? Should you stop using someone else’s phone or put covers over every toilet seat?
Alarming news from New York, where a State Health Commissioner confirmed that a rare but fatal virus has been encountered in 22 ticks from no less than 5 separate pools. So far, the virus has caused death in 10% of all encountered cases. Given that only 77 cases of the Powassan virus, as it is called, had been reported between 2006 and 2017, meaning 9 per year. To go from that number to a reported 22 cases in a week’s time is alarming to say the least.
Especially in Hudson Valley and Long Island more apparitions of the deadly tick virus have been reported.
Known symptons are like those of Lyme disease, meaning fever, vomiting and headache. Signs and symptoms typically start between two days and three weeks after contracting the disease. Bleeding from mucous membranes can also occur. If the patient is not treated rapidly after contraction, the virus can be deadly.
Professor of Microbiology Holly Ahern declared being concerned as no one has updated the information on the treatment for either Lime disease or the spread of the Powssan virus.
“The department of health is using CDC information,” Miss Ahern said. “That’s based on 30-year-old outdated science.”
Furthermore, both the Powassan virus and Lyme disease are highly dangerous and can infect very quickly, causing other tick-borne related illnesses which are life threatening.
Though New York health officials are advising against any panic, they had to admit that one Saratoga County man had already died from the virus in June, and that two other patients contracted it in Saratoga County, at least those are the numbers that had been reported to them.
The Center for Disease Control has not released an official statement yet.
Source:
Labvirus.com - Redfoot
https://www.healththoroughfare.com/news/a-new-fatal-virus-was-found-in-new-york-ticks/1625
http://news10.com/2017/08/30/tick-samples-test-positive-for-powassan-virus-in-saratoga-co/
