Researchers identified the case in April 2026, drawing on a study of 107 individuals who presented with tick-borne illness symptoms \u2013 including fever \u2013 between 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n
Blood samples analysed at the New York State Department of Health showed that two cases carried neutralising antibodies for the Bourbon virus. One had a four-fold rise in these antibodies, which the researchers say points to a severe or very recent infection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one case certainly was the Bourbon virus, and over a one-month period antibody titers increased eight-fold. The patient had showed some very severe symptoms and was hospitalised,\u201d said Luis Marcos, the lead author of the study, who is also director of Stony Brook University\u2019s Tick-Borne Diseases Clinic.<\/p>\n
The symptoms looked so much like Lyme disease that the patient was initially diagnosed with it and treated with doxycycline, the standard Lyme treatment. It didn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n This virus is transmitted through the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum<\/em>), which bites painlessly and often goes unnoticed. It can stay attached to the host for as long as seven days until it\u2019s fully engorged with blood.<\/p>\n The lone star tick is the culprit when it comes to several tick diseases \u2013 alpha-gal syndrome (the red meat allergy), ehrlichiosis, heartland virus disease, southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI) and tularemia.<\/p>\n Bourbon virus cases have been found in the Midwest, East Coast and Southern US, though the\u00a0CDC\u00a0notes it can\u2019t rule out the virus being present in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n The virus was first identified in 2014, in a man from Bourbon County, Kansas, and it resulted in the patient\u2019s death. Since then, a handful of cases have surfaced. In 2017, a 58-year-old\u00a0woman\u00a0in Missouri died from the virus after it had gone misdiagnosed for a significant period. This year, a lethal case in a 63-year-old diabetic male was\u00a0reported\u00a0in Kansas.<\/p>\n Most tick-borne diseases in the US are treated effectively. Bourbon virus is different, mainly because of its rarity \u2013 but researchers are warning it may become more prevalent this summer and in the years ahead. If it does, diagnosis will be the bottleneck: there\u2019s currently no commercial test to confirm infection, no vaccine and no targeted treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of lone star ticks in New York and in the Northeast, we have dense populations, and when someone is infected with Bourbon virus, symptoms are similar to other tick-borne infections,\u201d said Marcos.<\/p>\n \u201cFor these reasons, the Bourbon virus is likely more prevalent than we think in our region and other cases are likely not being diagnosed.\u201d<\/p>\n Symptoms include fever, fatigue, rash, headache, body aches and nausea \u2013 a list that overlaps with nearly every other tick-borne illness.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout identifying the cause of an infection, the chances of developing accurate diagnostic tests or effective treatments are minimal. That is why it is so important to first understand the true impact of the virus in high-risk areas,\u201d added Marcos.<\/p>\nWhat is the Bourbon virus?<\/h2>\n
Hard to catch<\/h2>\n