Lethal Tick Bite Claims Woman in Missouri

Tamela Wilson is fifth known person to have contracted the Bourbon virus
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2017 8:52 AM CDT
Rare Tick-Borne Virus Kills Woman in Missouri
This undated photo provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Lone Star tick, which, despite its Texas-sounding name, is found mainly in the Southeast.   (James Gathany/CDC via AP)

Tamela Wilson was no stranger to tick bites. The 58-year-old assistant superintendent at Meramec State Park in Missouri had worked at a state park for more than a decade and would pick the bugs off her skin routinely, reports CBS News. But in late May, just four days after she plucked two off her body, she was so weak she couldn't pick up the phone. Antibiotics for a possible urinary tract infection did nothing, and doctors couldn't explain the rash spreading across her body. Soon, infectious disease specialists sent a blood sample to the CDC, which confirmed that hers was only the fifth confirmed case of the deadly Bourbon virus since it was first discovered in 2014.

Wilson's daughter, who happens to be a nurse, says all they could do was hope it would leave their mother's system. It didn't help that her mother had been treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma since 2012; people over 50 who have chronic medical conditions are more likely to experience a serious illness when they catch a tick-borne disease, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Wilson died June 23. As scary and deadly as emerging tick-borne illnesses can be, one doctor says this is an opportunity to remind people that "there are things we face every day that are much more of a problem." Just as thousands of Americans died of the flu during the 2014 Ebola scare, tens of thousands get Lyme disease from tick bites compared to just a handful of the more rare ones. (The Powassan virus has experts issuing dire warnings.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X