Deerfly fever; Rabbit fever; Pahvant Valley plague; Ohara disease; Yatobyo (Japan); Lemming fever

The goal of treatment is to cure the infection with antibiotics. Streptomycin and tetracycline are commonly used to treat this infection. Once daily gentamycin treatment has been tried with excellent results as an alternative therapy to streptomycin. However, only a few cases have been studied to date.

Tetracycline and Chloramphenicol can be used alone, but they are not considered a first-line treatment.

Note: oral tetracycline is usually not prescribed for children until after all their permanent teeth have come in. It can permanently discolor teeth that are still forming.

Tularemia is fatal in about 5% of untreated cases, and in less than 1% of treated cases.

• Bone infection (osteomyelitis)
• Infection of the sac around the heart (pericarditis)
• Meningitis
• Pneumonia

Call your health care provider if symptoms develop after a rodent bite, tick bite, or exposure to the flesh of a wild animal.

Images

Antibodies

Ticks

Deer ticks

Tick imbedded in the skin

Review Date: 03/17/2009
Reviewed By: David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine; and Jatin M. Vyas, MD, PhD, Assistant Proessor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Assistant in Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

A.D.A.M., Inc. is accredited by URAC, also known as the American Accreditation HealthCare Commission (www.urac.org)