Ticks are one of the most disgusting parasites out there tormenting animals, even us humans. Not just they suck out blood, ticks are also vectors of a number of illnesses such as Lyme disease. But the real horror doesn’t stop there as one man mysteriously died from a tick bite.
Yes, you read it right. A tick bite! Tick bites can cause Lyme disease that could be treated by antibiotic…
But in this case it isn’t Lyme disease that killed the unsuspecting farmer but something even more horrifying, leaving doctors baffled.
The Center For Disease Control (CDC) took six months to determine the cause of the farmer’s mysterious illness and they were horrified after discovering that the disease came from a tick.
Shockingly, he was infected with an unknown virus they called “Bourbon Virus” named after Bourbon Kansas County in which the farmer lives and the only victim reported.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease expert from University of Kansas Hospital said, “Its genome is similar to viruses that have been found in eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, but no virus like that has ever been identified in the western hemisphere, certainly nothing we’ve ever seen here.”
Hawkinson believes that the virus is carried by ticks with symptoms that include fever, anorexia, and muscle aches. Unfortunately, the new virus is resistant to any antibiotics, which means the farmer would be still left uncured whether he knew he was infected or not.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declared that the man died of an unknown virus not previously known in the United States, but it is not yet clear how much the Bourbon virus contributed to the farmer’s death.
“This was the first known instance and the only confirmed case,” a spokesperson from the Health Department said. “This is a new virus, and we are still learning.”
Watch this report
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