Most Lyme disease in the United States is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi.
Borrelia mayonii is a less common cause of the same disease, transmitted
by the same blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), and until 2025 it had
only ever been reported in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
What happened
On 8 July 2025 the New York State Department of Health was notified by a
commercial laboratory that a Herkimer County resident had tested positive
for B. mayonii by real-time PCR.
The patient had developed symptoms consistent with a tickborne infection in
late June, and was co-infected with Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the
anaplasmosis bacterium. They were treated with **doxycycline and made a full
recovery**.
And they had no history of travel, transplant or transfusion — they had
simply spent time outdoors. That is what turned a laboratory result into a
public health investigation: if the patient did not bring the infection from
Minnesota, it was already in New York.
Finding it in the ground
**One Ixodes scapularis nymph collected from the patient's own property
tested positive for B. mayonii** by a novel PCR assay. Targeted sampling
then identified nine more positive ticks on the same property.
Ten infected ticks in one place is not a stray import on a migrating bird. It
indicates local transmission — the pathogen is established there.
Why it matters beyond one county
These findings are **the first detection of B. mayonii in the state of New
York**. Mapping where a newly emerging tickborne pathogen actually is lets
public health services evaluate risk and target prevention, rather than
assuming the distribution recorded a decade ago still holds.
For a clinician, the practical consequence is narrower and sharper: a Lyme
disease test looking only for B. burgdorferi in a state where B. mayonii
"does not occur" will keep being right until it is not.
*Source: Nafiz TN, Prusinski MA, Gubbala S, et al. Notes from the Field:
Borrelia mayonii Lyme Disease — New York, 2025. MMWR, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.*
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