New Hampshire Man Hospitalized With Rare Tick-Borne Virus

A 66-year-old New Hampshire man has spent weeks in the hospital fighting Powassan virus, a rare but serious illness spread by ticks. He was admitted to Concord Hospital for about two weeks before getting transferred to Massachusetts General for more intensive care, according to sources close to the patient.

It reportedly started simple. A tick bite. Then feeling run down. Then it escalated.

What Powassan Actually Is

Ticks spread it. That's the only way, mostly — it doesn't pass through coughing or touching. In very rare cases it's spread through blood transfusions, but that's about it.

Cases are still rare, though they've ticked upward in recent years. Most show up in the Northeast and Great Lakes region, typically late spring through mid-fall when ticks are most active. The name comes from Powassan, Ontario, where it was first identified back in 1958.

How Bad Can It Get

Symptoms start mild. Fever, headache, vomiting, weakness. For some people it stops there.

For others it doesn't. Severe cases can turn into encephalitis or meningitis — infections of the brain and the tissue surrounding it. That's when things get scary. Confusion. Loss of coordination. Trouble speaking. Seizures.

About 1 in 10 people who develop severe Powassan disease die from it. Half the survivors are left with lasting effects — recurring headaches, muscle weakness, memory problems that don't fully go away.

There's no vaccine. No specific treatment. Doctors can only manage symptoms while your body fights it off. Which makes prevention the whole game here.

Before You Panic — Here Are the Real Numbers

Finding a tick on you is unsettling. But the actual odds of it turning into something like this are genuinely low, and the data backs that up.

Powassan itself is shockingly rare. The CDC has logged somewhere between 20 and 50 cases nationwide per year in recent years — total, across the entire country. Compare that to roughly 89,000 reported Lyme disease cases annually, and Powassan barely registers. You are statistically far more likely to deal with almost anything else tick-related than this specific virus.

Even Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the US, doesn't come from every bite. Most research puts the odds of getting Lyme from a single tick bite somewhere between 1% and 5%, depending on the tick species, how long it was attached, and whether it was actually carrying the bacteria in the first place. Remove a tick within the first 24 hours and that risk drops even further — most infections require well over a day of attachment before transmission happens at all.

So, a tick on your skin is not a guaranteed problem. It's a reason to act quickly and correctly.

How to Actually Remove a Tick

Use clean, fine-tipped tweezers. Grab it as close to your skin as you can — right at the mouthparts, not the body. Pull straight up, slow and steady. Don't twist. Don't jerk.

If the mouthparts break off and stay in your skin, leave them. Your body pushes them out on its own as it heals, or you can try tweezing them out separately.

Clean the bite and your hands afterward — soap and water, rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, any of those work. Never crush a tick with your fingers.

To get rid of it: drop it in alcohol, seal it in a bag, wrap it in tape, or flush it. Skip the folk remedies. Nail polish, petroleum jelly, a lit match — none of that works, and some of it actually makes things worse by causing the tick to release more saliva into your skin before it lets go.

Avoiding the Bite in the First Place

Ticks like grassy, brushy, wooded areas — but your own backyard counts too. Stick to trail centers when hiking. Treat clothes and gear with 0.5% permethrin. Use an EPA-registered repellent on skin.

Once you're inside, toss your clothes in the dryer on high for 10 minutes — that kills anything still hanging on, or wash in hot water first. Then check your body. Armpits, ears, belly button, behind the knees, your hairline and scalp, between your legs, around your waist. Ticks go for the spots you're least likely to look.

Quick removal really is the difference-maker. Most tick-borne illnesses need 24 to 48 hours of attachment before transmission even becomes likely. Catch it early, pull it correctly, and the odds stay firmly in your favor.

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