HEALTH
Experts alarm: cases of babesiosis on the rise in the U.S.
Doctors and scientists in the United States are raising the alarm against a tick-borne disease called babesiosis, which is very similar to malaria and whose documented cases have more than doubled in the mid-west US in recent years.
Climate change and the exploitation of more and more agricultural land could be, according to experts, the main reasons for the increase in cases of this disease, which is fatal 20% of the time in elderly or immunocompromised patients.
Babesia is a single-celled organism that normally circulates among ticks and deer, but can also infect humans through a tick bite.
Experts alarm: cases of babesiosis on the rise in the U.S.
Doctors and scientists in the United States are raising the alarm against a tick-borne disease called babesiosis, which is very similar to malaria and whose documented cases have more than doubled in the mid-west US in recent years. Climate change and the exploitation of more and more agricultural land could be, according to experts, the main reasons for the increase in cases of this disease, which is fatal 20% of the time in elderly or immunocompromised patients. Babesia is a single-celled organism that normally circulates among ticks and deer, but can also infect humans through a tick bite.
The United States in the grip of babesia
The latest data from control centres in the United States have shown a dramatic increase in cases of babesia, a disease similar to malaria but transmitted by ticks, which kills up to 20% of those infected. According to many observers, the reasons for these increases can be traced to climate change and the over-exploitation of huge tracts of land for agriculture and urban development.
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The University's studies at California
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, claimed to have, for the first time, decoded the genome of this disease in high quality, and this should lead to enormous developments in drug therapy, prophylaxis, but also in diagnosis. One of the big problems with the increase in infections is also due to the fact that, reports the Daily Mail, doctors often do not know the disease and do not know how to carry out the correct tests.
Babesia and babesiosis
Babesia is a single-celled organism that normally circulates among ticks and deer, but can also infect humans through a tick bite. Symptoms become evident one to six weeks after the bite. Initially they may seem similar to those caused by malaria (spread by mosquitoes), including fever, headache and muscle pain. In more severe cases, however, symptoms may develop into organ failure, enlargement of the spleen or liver and anaemia, caused by the destruction of red blood cells by the pathogen.
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The mortality rate of this disease and the increase in cases
According to estimates by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 0.5 per cent of all patients die from the disease. But among the elderly and immunocompromised, the mortality rate can be as high as 20% (Columbia University data). Moreover, the increase in cases is more than evident: around 2,500 people are diagnosed with the infection every year, compared to just over 1,000 a decade earlier.
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Confusion with the disease of Lyme
However, cases may even be higher than the numbers just mentioned. This is because in some cases babesiosis is confused with Lyme disease, which is much more common nowadays and better known to physicians. Last month the CDC reported that cases increased in eight of the 10 states that reported cases of babesiosis from 2011 to 2019. The increase was 25 percent. At the same time, cases of Lyme disease, which can be confused with this disease, increased by 44 percent.
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