Borrelia Burgdorferi Case Studies

On October 30, 2009, a man was admitted to a Michigan emergency room complaining of pain and numbness in the left hand and arm and pain in the upper back and neck, which had persisted for 10 days. The back pain had improved after chiropractic intervention, but the numbness was getting progressively worse. The right arm showed normal mobility, but the patient was unable to lift the left arm even a couple of inches. A CBC and routine chemistry panel were performed and were normal other than an elevated WBC count (15,300/μl) and elevated glucose (155mg/dl). The patient was hospitalized and over the next few days experienced increasing weakness and further elevated WBC count. By day five, he was experiencing neurological symptoms, but CSF analyzed was negative for Borrelia burgdorferi as well as viruses including West Nile, measles, influenza, varicella-zoster and others. On day 9, a relative recalled an incident nine months previous where the patient awoke to a bat on his arm. He killed and discarded the …show more content…
The term rabies comes from the Latin rabia meaning ‘rage’, and is marked by acute, progressive encephalitis. One of the first well-documented and large scale rabies outbreaks took place in 1271, where a pack of rabid wolves descended on humans and livestock in northern Germany, leaving more than 30 dead. Found on every continent except for Antarctica, rabies is responsible for the deaths of between 30,000-70,000 annually worldwide, with 95% of cases occurring in Africa and Asia. Between 1980-2015, 83 human cases were reported in the United States. Of those cases, 30% were due to patients being exposed to rabid animals while travelling in endemic areas and five cases were due to organ or tissue transplant from infected donors. Though dogs are the most common reservoir of rabies globally, bats are responsible for most cases of rabies in the United