Experts say they’ve heard about only 17 cases of babesia in the Commonwealth on the Eastern Shore and in southwest Virginia.
"It’s a malaria-like parasite that’s transmitted by the deer tick or the black legged tick," says Dr. Jeffrey Wilson, a professor of allergy and immunology at UVA.
He says infected patients can have a range of symptoms.
“Babesia cases can be mild or in some cases maybe no symptoms at all. It can be flu-like. It can have fevers and fatigue, but if it’s a more severe case people can get quite ill.”
And it’s important to be checked, because babesia is treated differently than other tick-borne infections.
“Many of the tick-borne bacterial illnesses that we’re familiar with like Lyme, Rocky Mountain spotted fever or ehrlichia can be treated with the same doxycycline antibiotic," Wilson explains, "but because babesia is a parasite, not a bacteria, doxycycline is not the correct treatment."
And just to complicate matters, it’s possible to get both babesia and Lyme disease together.
“And again, if you just treat the Lyme disease with doxycycline, that’s going to be helpful for the Lyme, but that’s not going to take care of the babesia.”
To prevent both, Wilson says you can use an insecticide spray like DEET, but there might be a better option.
“Permethrin has probably got better data as an anti-tick preventive, but permethrin doesn’t go on your skin. It actually goes on your clothes, so you can spray your clothes down ahead of time and let them dry, and it can be applied to your pants and your shoes.”
Another advantage, he says, is that you don’t have to spray each time you go out. You can probably just apply it a few times during the season.
