Jul 30, 2025
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HANCOCK COUNTY—For the first time this year, a Hancock County resident has been diagnosed and hospitalized with the Powassan virus according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) and initially reported by Leela Stockley of the Bangor Daily News.
Powassan is a tick-borne virus.
“Powassan virus (POW) has been detected in a Maine resident in Hancock County and West Nile virus (WNV) has been detected in a bird in York County,” the Maine CDC wrote in a release, July 29. “These are both the first detections of those infections in Maine in 2025.”
The West Nile virus was found in a York County crow that was collected July 16.
“There are no reported human cases of WNV in 2025 to date,” the agency said.
In an advisory also dispersed on July 29, the Maine CDC said that the Hancock County resident with Powassan was hospitalized in late May.
“This individual acquired the infection in Maine,” they wrote.
According to the Maine CDC, viruses from arthropods can be transmitted to humans from ticks and mosquitos.
These arboviral diseases include Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV), and West Nile virus (WNV) from mosquitos.
Powassan virus can be spread by ticks.
“Human infections with any of these viruses can be severe and fatal,” the Maine CDC wrote.
People with Powassan may have no symptoms, flu-like symptoms, or seizures, memory loss and inflammation of the brain or spinal cord.
“While most people infected by arboviruses are asymptomatic, clinical presentations can be either neuroinvasive or non-neuroinvasive,” Dr. Isaac Benowitz, state epidemiologist wrote in the public health advisory.
Those non-neuroinvasive symptoms include “fever, headache, fatigue, muscle aches, and neck stiffness” while neuroinvasive or severe symptoms, Dr. Benowitz wrote, include “vomiting, ataxia, aphasia, encephalitis, meningitis, confusion, altered mental status, convulsions, seizures, paresis/paralysis, coma, and death.”
“Incubation periods range from 1 day to 5 weeks after a bite from an infected mosquito or tick, depending on the virus. Case fatality rates vary from 10–50% depending on the virus and clinical presentation,” according to the health advisory.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
The UMaine Tick Lab has information about ticks and tick testing.
The Maine CDC weekly arboviral surveillance reports,
The Maine CDC mosquitoes and ticks website
HETL clinical forms and submission instructions.
The U.S. CDC tickborne disease reference manual for clinicians.
The Maine CDC disease reporting and consultation line: 1-800-821-5821 (available 24/7)
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