No Bullseye Rash, More Nausea And Vomiting, Higher Bacterial Load In The Blood, And More Neurological Symptoms. B. mayonii Was Previously Confined To Minnesota And Wisconsin, And No One Yet Knows How It Reached The Adirondacks
According to CNY Central and NBC News, a CDC report published Thursday confirmed the first-ever detection of Borrelia mayonii Lyme disease outside the upper Midwest in an adult in Herkimer County, upstate New York, last July. The patient had not recently travelled, meaning the bacterium arrived in the county through local tick exposure, not importation.
The Wadsworth Center identified Borrelia mayonii in blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) collected in New York State; the first time this Lyme disease pathogen has been detected outside the upper Midwest. Ten ticks; one nymph and nine adults from Herkimer County tested positive. A broader search of more than 1,500 ticks from 24 New York counties did not find it again.
B. mayonii causes more severe symptoms than standard Lyme disease. Both strains begin with fever and headache, but B. mayonii is more likely to cause nausea and vomiting. Patients may also skip the hallmark bullseye rash and instead develop a widespread rash of tiny red spots across a broader area of the body. Neurological symptoms are also more pronounced. Unlike B. burgdorferi, B. mayonii is associated with a higher concentration of bacteria in the blood.
“While this finding was unexpected, we do know that a range of ticks and tick-borne disease can change geographically over time,” a New York State Health Department spokesperson told NBC News. Dr. Bobbi Pritt, a Mayo Clinic pathologist and one of the scientists who first discovered B. mayonii, noted: “There could be more broad symptoms that we haven’t seen yet.”
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