First New York Case of Tickborne Bourbon Virus Confirmed on Long Island

Researchers at Stony Brook Medicine have confirmed the first human case of Bourbon virus in New York State, in a patient on Long Island. The virus is carried by the lone star tick, and until now the small number of known cases sat in the central United States. The finding was published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

The case surfaced in April 2026, in a study that went back through blood samples from 107 patients who had come in with fever and other tickborne symptoms between 2019 and 2024. Two carried neutralizing antibodies for Bourbon virus. One of them saw antibody levels climb eightfold over a single month, which points to a recent infection, and that patient was hospitalized with severe symptoms. That patient had first been treated for Lyme disease with doxycycline and did not improve.

The diagnostic gap is the practical problem. There is no commercial test for Bourbon virus, so New York samples go to the state Department of Health for analysis. There is also no vaccine and no antiviral treatment. Early symptoms of fever, fatigue, rash, headache, body aches, and nausea look like several more familiar tickborne infections, which is why the study's authors expect the virus is more common in the region than the case count shows.

The lone star tick is what carries this beyond one patient. It is an aggressive biter that will come after people, and the CDC lists established populations across the Northeast, South, and Midwest. The same tick spreads ehrlichiosis, tularemia, Heartland virus, and the alpha-gal syndrome that turns red meat into an allergen. As of this dateline, confirmed human Bourbon virus cases nationally still number in the single digits, and that figure is expected to climb as testing widens. At least two of those cases have been fatal, one in Kansas in 2014 and one this year.

With no vaccine, prevention carries the whole load, and it is the same routine that keeps any biting insect off you. Treat clothing and boots with permethrin, put a repellent with DEET or picaridin on exposed skin, and run a full body check when you come in from tall grass or leaf litter. Most of those habits already appear in mosquito risks and prevention, and the tick check is the one to add, since removing a tick promptly lowers the risk from every illness it can pass along. Dogs carry them indoors as well, so the flea and tick medication covered in preparedness for your canine companion protects the household and not just the dog.

This is one confirmed case rather than an outbreak, and the researchers are calling for wider surveillance rather than alarm. For a household in the Northeast the change is small and worth making. If a fever follows a known tick bite, tell the doctor about the bite. An infectious disease that arrives ahead of a test for it puts more weight on what you notice and report. The New World screwworm reached Texas the same way, moving north slowly while surveillance caught up. Be Prepared Not Scared.