WHRO The illness is caused by a parasite, which makes it different from many well-known tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme.
A rare disease spread by ticks has slowly established a foothold in Virginia.
Babesiosis, a parasitic infection similar to malaria, was traditionally limited to the U.S. Northeast and Midwest.
But over the past decade, officials throughout the Mid-Atlantic have noticed an uptick in confirmed cases of the disease. Researchers from Old Dominion University and the Virginia Department of Health recently contributed to a study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology that confirms the regional trend.