Emerging tick-borne diseases expand range along with rebounding deer populations

摘要

Lyme disease remains the most common tickborne illness in the United States, with about 20 000 to 30 000 cases identified each year. But babesio-sis, which is caused by the protozoan parasite Bdbesia microti, has received renewed attention as its range has expanded. Once known as "Nantucket fever" because it was common among individuals living—along with a robust population of deer, a key vector—on that New England coastal island, it is now considered endemic in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.