Researchers have identified a new tick-borne illness believed to be the cause of a Kansas man's death this summer after he entered the University of Kansas Medical Center with symptoms like those of other diseases carried by ticks, WPTV reports.
The Centers for Disease Control are investigating a new disease being named the Bourbon Virus that doctors struggled to identify for months. In spite of the symptoms, John Seested, 68, tested negative for known tick-borne illnesses, according to the Fort Scott Tribune.
'It was very frustrating,' Dr Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease physician at the hospital told WPTV about the uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis.
'That's one of the biggest problems with my job, which I love, when we can't answer those questions, when we can't help the patients or their families.'
The man did not respond to treatment, according to Dr Hawkinson, and soon went into multiple organ failure and died.
Seested's death certificate listed three causes of death, with tick-borne illness as the third, Seested's wife, Jan, told the Tribune.
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