One big A Japanese woman visited her doctor in the summer of 2022, complaining of fever and fatigue. The doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia, but after his condition continued to deteriorate, he was taken to hospital, where a tick was found on his right upper thigh.
Twenty-six days after admission to the hospital, the woman died of myocarditis.
The Oz virus was first detected in Japan in 2018 as hardy Amblyomma testudinarium in ticks. There is currently no vaccine against it. To date, the pathogen has only been identified in the archipelago.
According to the Japanese Institute of Epidemiology, viral infections are not always fatal, but more research is needed to discover its symptoms and risks. Scientists believe that the infection is spread by tick bites.
Antibodies produced against the virus were found in wild monkeys, wild boars, and deer in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo, Gifu, and Mie prefectures in the central part of the country, Wakayama and Yamaguchi in the west, and Oita in the southwest. MTI wrote that the antibody was discovered in the bodies of two fishermen in Yamaguchi Prefecture.
