Tularemia or Rabbit Fever

Tularemia is a highly infectious disease you get from the bacterium F. tularensis. You can get it from bug bites, infected animals, contaminated water or food, and particles of bacteria in the air. Tularemia can affect your skin, eyes, throat, lungs and intestines. Tularemia should be treated as soon as possible with antibiotics. We will not have a guest for this week, but would love to invite anyone who has been diagnosed with Tularemia to be a guest on a future show.

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Tularemia causes your lymph nodes to painfully swell and other symptoms in your lungs, eyes, throat and intestines, depending on where the bacteria infects you.

​It is a zoonotic disease, which means it spreads between animals and humans. Commonly called "rabbit fever" or "deer fly fever," people get tularemia from exposure to deer flies and ticks that have F. tularensis infections. You can also get it from contact with infected animals (generally rabbits, hares and rodents) or food and water sources contaminated with the bacteria. Tularemia can cause your lymph nodes to swell severely, which looks like large bumps on your body. Sometimes it causes broken skin (ulceration) at the site where F. tularensis bacteria entered your body. (Credits: Cleveland Clinic)

​People can become infected in several ways, including:

• Tick and deer fly bites

• Skin contact with infected animals

• Drinking contaminated water

• Inhaling contaminated aerosols or agricultural and landscaping dust

• Laboratory exposure

In addition, people could be exposed as a result of bioterrorism.

Symptoms vary depending how the person was infected. Tularemia can be life-threatening, but most infections can be treated successfully with antibiotics.

Steps to prevent tularemia include:

• Using insect repellent

• Wearing gloves when handling sick or dead animals

• Avoiding mowing over dead animals

In the United States, naturally occurring infections have been reported from all states except Hawaii.