Rare tick-borne Powassan virus gets renewed attention in Ontario

Sue Cossar says she still thinks about her brother Lincoln every day; 65 years after he died of a tick bite.

Lincoln was five years old when he died of complications from what is now known as Powassan virus, a tick-borne illness which can lead to infection of the brain (encephalitis) or the membranes around the brain and spinal cord (meningitis) in severe cases.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S., one in 10 people with the severe disease die. They note the virus is rare, but "the number of reported cases of people sick from Powassan virus has increased in recent years."

Cossar said her little brother was the first recorded death from Powassan virus. The disease was named after the northern Ontario town, south of North Bay, where their family lived at that time.

"We were a pretty close family, so when he got sick it was pretty devastating," Cossar said.

She was 10 when Lincoln got sick, and remembered that her parents had to rush him to Toronto for medical care.

They arrived on a Monday. He later fell into a coma and died that Friday, Cossar said.

Now, Ontario's top doctor says the province could see a growing number of three tick-borne illnesses in addition to Lyme disease. They are anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan virus. 

"We can now count and track when these illnesses are occurring, map it for a risk map and be able to inform the public when these diseases become more prevalent," Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Kieran Moore told the Canadian Press.

"It's absolutely expected that we'll have greater incidence over the next several years because this is a known wave of infections that we've seen migrate up the coastline of northeast North America and anticipate them affecting Ontarians."

A recent case

Annemarie Weymouth, of Topsham, Maine, has experienced firsthand the impact of tick-borne diseases.

Her husband Robert died of complications from Powassan virus on May 14. He was 58 years old.

"It was hell," Weymouth said.

She said her husband was on some immune suppressing drugs due to his rheumatoid arthritis  

"So that is where we feel that maybe allowed some of this Powassan virus to manifest in his body a little bit differently than it might differ from me or you," Weymouth said.

Now Weymouth is an advocate for more awareness and safety around ticks.

She said people with weakened immune systems should be especially vigilant when they're outdoors in areas that have ticks.

"You have to spray yourself with bug spray," she said.

"You just have to check yourself for ticks in places you might not think you could even get a tick because, like I said, we were not aware that he was even bitten."