Tickborne illnesses – such as Lyme disease, Tularemia and Rocky Mountain
spotted fever – can be serious and sometimes deadly. They are a major public health
problem around the world. Now, a new study reports the discovery in northern China of a
tickborne illness in humans that has never been seen before.
Some ticks carry pathogens like viruses and bacteria that enter the bloodstream of the
animals and people they bite.
Ticks are small, blood-sucking arthropods, and like their cousins – mites, spiders and scorpions – they have eight legs. There are many different species of tick, with
different ones biting and sucking the blood of different animals, and sometimes this
includes humans.
Some ticks carry pathogens like viruses and bacteria that enter the bloodstream of the
animals and people that they bite. There are many different tickborne illnesses caused
by a range of pathogens.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) list at least 14 different types of tickborne diseases known in the US.
Tickborne diseases usually cause fever, chills, aches, pains and rash. Symptoms range
from mild reactions that are treatable at home to severe infections requiring
hospitalization.
‘Entirely new species of bacteria’
The new discovery, reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, is the
work of a team of researchers from China and the US. In their paper, they say it is
possible that the newly-discovered disease could be a “substantial” threat to human and
animal health in the region where the tick prevails.
They name the newly discovered pathogen – a bacterium – Anaplasma capra,
after the fact it appears to be common in goats. “Capra” is the Latin word for “goat.”
The bacterium is related to other Anaplasma bacteria, some of which can also
cause illness when transmitted from ticks to humans.
However, the researchers note they are not sure how widespread A. capra and
the tick that carries it might be and whether they bite other animals as well as
goats.
Co-author J. Stephen Dumler, a professor of pathology at the University of Maryland
School of Medicine in Baltimore and an expert with global experience of tickborne
diseases, says:
“This is an entirely new species of bacteria. This had never been seen in
humans before. We still have a lot to learn about this species, but it may be that this
bacteria is infecting humans over a wide area.”
Prof. Dumler himself discovered another Anaplasma bacterium that causes the
disease human anaplasmosis 2 decades ago.
For the study, he and his colleagues – including researchers from the Beijing
Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, the Mudanjiang Forestry Central Hospital and
Shanghai Jiaotong University, all in China – tested 477 patients in northeast China who
had been bitten by a tick over the period of a month in the spring of 2014.
They found that 6% of the patients – 28 individuals – were infected by the new species
of bacteria – A. capra.
The symptoms of infection by A. capra include fever, muscle aches, headache,
tiredness and dizziness. The patients recovered after treatment with antibiotics,
particularly doxycycline.
A. capra probably transmitted by the taiga tick
Not much is known about A. capra. It is not easy to diagnose – there is no
simple blood test.
The researchers say A. capra is probably transmitted by the taiga tick – a close relative of
the deer tick. The tick is widespread in Eastern Europe and Asia – including Russia, China and
Japan.
If the taiga tick spreads A. capra throughout this region, then human
infection may be common, says Prof. Dumler, who notes that more than a billion people
live in areas where the tick is prevalent. He and his colleagues conclude:
“The emergence of A. capra as a cause of human disease suggests
that individuals living in or traveling to endemic regions in northern China should take
precautions to reduce their risk of exposure to this novel tickborne
pathogen.”
The Natural Science Foundation of China and the US National Institutes of Health
funded the study.
In 2013, Medical News Today reported how researchers from Yale University
found a new infection caused by ticks that is extremely
similar to Lyme disease. They described how they found the unnamed disease for the
first time in humans – 18 people in southern New England and upstate New York – in the
New England Journal of Medicine.