Prevention Tick-borne infections are on the rise, causing about half a million new illnesses in America each year. But while most people are familiar on some level with infections like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, there’s a new tick-borne infection to have on your radar. It’s called Wetland virus, and it’s a newly-discovered illness spotted in China that has the potential to invade the brain.
That’s the main takeaway from a new scientific report published in The New England Journal of Medicine. For the study, scientists in China analyzed hospital data on patients who visited the hospital with a fever and a history of tick bites. They also sequenced data from a patient with an ongoing fever and multiple organ dysfunction after being bitten by a tick.