Overview
- County health officials disclosed this week that they are tracking three probable tularemia cases but said formal confirmation can take several weeks because specialized lab tests and clinical criteria are required.
- One patient is 9-year-old John Detmer of Riverhead, who developed illness after an April tick bite, had laboratory and blood tests consistent with tularemia, completed doxycycline and is recovering but still fatigued.
- Researchers reported finding the tularemia-causing bacterium in ticks collected in Suffolk County, a finding that prompted the health department to step up public warnings and local tick surveillance.
- Tularemia is a rare bacterial infection spread by infected ticks, deer flies or contact with sick animals that typically causes fever, ulcers at the exposure site and swollen lymph nodes and is not spread person-to-person.
- Officials are urging simple precautions—use EPA-registered repellent, wear long sleeves and pants, check for ticks after outdoor activity, avoid handling sick wildlife—and caution that higher tick activity can raise local case risk given Suffolk's outsized share of New York cases.