Kansas Doctors Identified New Tick-Borne Virus

Doctors from the University of Kansas Hospital and officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have decided to name the new tick-borne illness linked to killing a man this summer the 'Bourbon virus.' The sole victim of the new illness John Seested of Fort Scott resided in Bourbon County.

Seested went to the hospital to be tested for standard tick-borne illnesses. However, all of the tests came back negative. Seested was then started on traditional therapies, which he did not respond to. Seested ended up dying from organ failure. It took the doctors and federal officials roughly six months to identify the new disease.

"It was very frustrating. 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," Dr. Dana Hawkinson, an infectious disease physician at the university hospital, said to KSHB.com reported by the New York Daily News. "We continued to push and have concerns as to why this happened. The CDC was on board with us and was able to help us with that and we've now identified this new virus."

Dr. Hawkinson added in a video prepared last week on Hospital's Medical News Network site, "Bourbon virus has likely been around for some time, but only recently did we have the diagnostic techniques to isolate and identify such viruses... Its genome is similar to viruses that have been found in eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, but no virus like that has ever been identified in the western hemisphere."

Spokeswoman Aimee Rosenow stated reported by FOX News, "This was the first known instance and the only confirmed case. This is a new virus, and we are still learning."

Typical symptoms of a tick-borne illness include high fever, nausea, strong headache and muscle aches.

The CDC is currently investigating other cases to see if they could be linked to the Bourbon virus.