The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Crawford County Health Department have identified heartland virus disease, a rare tickborne illness, in a Crawford County resident. Health care providers diagnosed the resident in late May 2023 after further testing was coordinated through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is the first case of heartland in Crawford County and only the third case identified in Kansas since the virus’s discovery in northwest Missouri in 2009. The previous two cases were identified in Miami County in 2015 and Anderson County in 2018. To date, there have been over 50 cases of heartland diagnosed across areas of the Midwest and Southern United States.
Heartland virus is transmitted through the bite of an infected Lone Star Tick, the most common tick in Kansas, which is most active from May through August. The symptoms of heartland are vague and include fever, fatigue, muscle or joint pain, headache and occasionally a rash. Health care providers should consider heartland in patients with compatible clinical illness and bloodwork findings when other common tickborne illness testing is negative.
Additional information about heartland virus can be found at cdc.gov/heartland-virus/index.html.
