A new regulation that takes effect this weekend requires health-care providers in Ontario to report cases of anaplasmosis, babesiosis and Powassan virus to their local medical officers of health.
"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." "We've seen them migrate from the mid-eastern United States and now that wave of migration we've seen go through Connecticut and New York and these diseases are following in the footsteps of Lyme disease and we anticipate that we'll have more cases of these."
Most infections of Powassan virus are asymptomatic, but people might have fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, weakness, or aches and pains. But after an acute phase and a period of remission, an infected person may experience confusion, loss of co-ordination, difficulty speaking, paralysis, seizures or coma, said Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Michelle Murti.