New tick disease moves into La Crosse area

/Home/Lyme Disease Co-Infections

By TERRY RINDFLEISCH | trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com | Posted: Monday, September 7, 2009 12:05 am | (2) Comments

Dean Jobe, supervisor of the Gundersen Lutheran Microbiology Research Laboratory, tests for a tick-borne disease, anaplasmosis, by extracting DNA from a blood sample and looking for a gene unique to the organism. Gundersen Lutheran developed a test for anaplasmosis.

La Crosse area health officials are seeing more cases of a new tick-borne infection carried by the same deer tick that causes Lyme disease.

Gundersen Lutheran researchers have been monitoring anaplasmosis the last three years and report 50 human cases in the La Crosse area.

The researchers have developed a test for the disease and have been testing blood samples in Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation's microbiology laboratories at the La Crosse Health Science Center.

"It is an emerging infection in this area," said Dean Jobe, researcher and supervisor of Gundersen Lutheran's laboratories. "In collecting ticks, we have found it in 10 to 15 percent of the ticks."

Only a few years ago, the disease was rare in the La Crosse area, he said.

"It is mimicking early Lyme," Jobe said. "We used to say we couldn't find ticks with Lyme south of I-90, and now we see plenty of ticks, and the same is happening with anaplasmosis."

Unlike Lyme, anaplasmosis is an infection of the white blood cells, he said. Lyme disease is primarily a skin infection that gets into the bloodstream and spreads into the joints, Jobe said.

"We've seen an increase in anaplasmosis over the last couple years, but particularly more this year," said Dr. Todd Kowalski, a Gundersen Lutheran physician specializing in infectious diseases. "It's been on our radar for 15 years or more with cases in northern Wisconsin, but the last few years it has been emerging in our area."

Kowalski said symptoms are similar to Lyme such as fever, headache and body aches, but people don't get a rash with anaplasmosis.

"It's not a subtle disease," Kowalski said. "Most people feel worse, and it's a little bit more abrupt than Lyme with perhaps a higher fever and more severe headache and body aches.

"With anaplasmosis, patients don't wait as long to see their physician or go to urgent care or the ER," he said. "But it is a very treatable disease. "

Kowalski said anaplasmosis is treated the same way as Lyme with a tetracycline antibiotic.

"What's rewarding is when patients are put on antibiotics, within 24 to 36 hours they feel a lot better," he said.

He also said prevention measures and the tick season from early spring to late fall are the same for both diseases. Kowalski said the same person can get the two infections at the same time.

He said most La Crosse area primary care, urgent care and emergency medicine physicians are aware of anaplasmosis.

Gundersen Lutheran has conducted research on the disease and developed an accurate molecular test which detects a gene unique to the organism and it can be done rapidly, Jobe said.

He said Gundersen Lutheran also is studying the best time to use the test in the course of the disease.

Jobe said the number of Lyme cases has continued to rise every year due to a bigger deer population and mild winters.

"We have a huge deer population that supports ticks, and I think anaplasmosis has established itself in the area," Jobe said.

"It's a little too early to say if anaplasmosis will be as common as Lyme, but there is a growing concern it could become problematic," he said.

..Anaplasmosis Q&A
What is it? Anaplasmosis is a tick-borne disease caused by a species of bacteria called Anaplasma phagocytophilum. It was previously known as human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) and later as human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA).

How do people get it? Anaplasmosis is transmitted to humans by tick bites primarily from the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis) in the eastern United States and the western blacklegged tick (Ixodes pacificus) in the western United States. Of the four distinct phases in the tick life-cycle (egg, larvae, nymph, adult), nymphal and adult ticks are most frequently associated with transmission of anaplasmosis to humans.

Where do most cases occur? About 600 to 800 cases of anaplasmosis are reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year. States reporting the highest incidence of anaplasmosis in 2006 were Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.