With summer just weeks away, experts have sounded the alarm on the Powassan virus, a rare tick-borne pathogen that might be deadlier than Lyme disease.
According to the experts, the Powassan virus can result in a more severe illness than the Lyme disease bactreium, with about 1 in 7 of Powassan cases leading to death. “About 15% of patients who are infected and have symptoms are not going [to] survive,” Dr. Jennifer Lyons, Division of Neurological Infections and Inflammatory Diseases chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told CNN.
“Of the survivors, at least 50% will have long-term neurological damage that is not going to resolve.”
Meanwhile, deaths from Lyme disease are so rare that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t even track them.
“Death from Lyme disease is rare as all stages are treatable by antibiotics,” Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, an affiliated scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told SELF.
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