On July 17, Kanagawa Prefecture announced that a woman in her 60s from Matsuda Town got infected with a tick-borne virus called SFTS (Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome). This is the first confirmed case from Kanagawa and the Kanto region. SFTS was first found in Japan in 2013 and has slowly spread east from western Japan. Before this case, the easternmost area with cases was Shizuoka.
The woman got sick on June 28 with fever and diarrhea and was later confirmed to have SFTS through genetic testing. She likely got bitten by a tick while working in her garden or pulling weeds near her home. She was hospitalized but has since recovered and been discharged.
SFTS can be very serious—about 10% of cases can lead to death, and 117 people in Japan have died from it as of April 2025.
The prefecture advises people to wear clothes that cover their skin and to see a doctor if bitten, instead of trying to remove ticks by force.
by MagazineKey4532