Leveraging Lyme Disease Surveillance to Simulate Powassan Virus Prevalence

2025/07/08 by J. McCluskey, Christopher Wichman, Abraham Degarege +1 · 1 voice
Medicine · #Viral Infections and Vectors

paper · doi:10.1093/infdis/jiaf368

openalex publication_date 2025/07/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/23

Abstract

Powassan virus (POWV), a tick-borne flavivirus, poses a public health risk with an estimated case fatality rate of approximately 10%. Its limited surveillance results in underreporting. Using Lyme disease data as a proxy, we developed an exploratory simulation study that estimated 4649 POWV cases in the United States from 2018 to 2022, as opposed to 156 reported cases. We further estimated mortality rates (0.2%-1%), which were lower than reported rates (4.8%-21%). These discrepancies suggest that POWV cases go undetected, likely due to asymptomatic and mild to moderate presentations. Our findings emphasize the need for enhanced surveillance to accurately assess the public health impact of POWV.

Discussions

• Leveraging Lyme Disease Surveillance to Simulate Powassan Virus Prevalence ✅ Just Accepted #IDSky [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

Related

• How Prevalence Influences the Interpretation of Lyme Disease Test Results in a High-Incidence State (Wisconsin) Versus a Low-Incidence State (Arkansas)
• A systematic review of the associations between mosquito- and tick-borne diseases and vector research in the United States
• New York State Tick Blitz: harnessing community-based science to understand range expansion of ticks
• Risk factors for Lyme disease among residents of rural, suburban, and urban areas in the United States: a case-control study
• Differential Virulence and Host-Specific Fitness of Regionally Distinct Human-Derived Powassan Virus Lineage 2 Strains