Yale: Ticks Don’t Only Carry Lyme Disease Bacteria

NEW HAVEN (AP) — Yale University researchers say Lyme disease is not the only thing to worry about when it comes to tick bites.

Researchers say they have found a new tick-borne bacterium called Borrelia miyamotoi, which is related to the Lyme disease bacterium and causes similar symptoms, including high fever. They say diseases from the newly discovered bacterium may be confused with Lyme disease and might be making people in the United States sick.

Yale experts and colleagues in Russia have found that about one-sixth of nearly 300 Russian patients with suspected tick-borne infections had diseases caused by Borrelia miyamotoi. Researchers are now trying to determine whether there are any illnesses in the United States caused by the bacterium, which can be treated with antibiotics.

More than 25,000 people get Lyme disease in the United States each year.