Babesiosis, a tick born infection is now causing severe disease and death. According to the government researchers, the infection is a growing threat to the U.S blood supply.
According to a 31-year study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is an increasing incidence of parasitic infection in the U.S.
There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate blood.
Babesia, the tick-born parasite causes anemia, fever, chills and fatigue. Severe infection may lead to organ failure and death. Babesia is a protozoan parasite of the blood that causes a hemolytic disease called Babesiosis. The parasite has over 100 species, however, only few have been documented as pathogen to humans.
There are still rare cases of this disease in seven of the U.S. States in the Northeast and Midwest.
Babesia parasites occur naturally in Masachussetts, Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Wisconsin. Other states that are vulnerable with the parasites are Texas and Florida.
From the year 1979 to 2009, 162 cases of Babesia infection are reported, nearly 80 percent of this infections occurred within the span of 2000 to 2009.
The infection is the most frequently reported transfusion-transmitted parasite in the U.S.; babesia microti outpaced malaria infections (which accounted with 49 cases of transfusion-associated diseases).
Researchers of Centers of Disease Control Prevention calls for better ways to prevent cases of transfusion related Babesiosis. They added the importance of multi-agency collaborative efforts to detect, investigate and document transfusion cases; assess the transfusion transmission risk and inform the scope of preventive measures.
Meanwhile, there is a separate study published in the journal Pediatrics regarding Babesiosis. A team of researchers at the University of Nebraska assessed seven cases of transfusion-associated Babesiosis in premature infants. The team found out that two infected units of blood caused all the seven cases of Babesiosis. The seven infants gained the hemolytic infection through blood transfusion.