The two midcoast Maine residents reportedly became sick in late April and were admitted with encephalitis to the hospital shortly thereafter, according to AOL News. Both patients have since been discharged and are recuperating at home.
“Powassan, although rare, can be serious so it is important to be aware of your surroundings and take steps to avoid being bitten by ticks,” state epidemiologist Dr. Siiri Bennett said in a statement, reports the Press Herald. “Ticks are found in wooded and bushy areas so use caution if you go into these areas.”
Griffin Dill, an integrated pest management professional with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension says that ticks are becoming a more integrated part of life for people living in Maine. We’ve created the right conditions for them to be prevalent and, because it’s Maine, we’re out there with them.”
Dill runs the state’s tick ID program and he notes that he has analyzed twice as many ticks already this year than he ID’ed at the same time last year. And the numbers are expected to increase based on published studies that show warming temperatures not only influenced the earlier emergence of ticks but influenced their spread to new regions.
Powassen is a tick-borne disease, but unlike Lyme’s Disease or anaplasmosis and babesiosis, which are caused by a bacteria, POW is caused by a virus, and it can be deadly. POW is fatal in about 10 percent of cases and up to 50 percent of patients with the POW virus will have lingering effects from the disease.
It should be noted that in 2016, the reported number of Lyme disease cases reached an all-time high of 1.464, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, beating a previous high of 1,410 cases reported in 2014.
