We present a case of a 66-year-old woman with decompensated alcoholic liver cirrhosis and poorly controlled non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus who was admitted with a 1 day history of altered mental status, high-grade fevers, worsening jaundice and generalised malaise with subsequent development of hypotension requiring intensive care. She was diagnosed with severe babesiosis with high-grade parasitaemia. She was also found to have Lyme disease coinfection. Despite aggressive therapeutic measures including appropriate antibiotics and multiple exchange blood transfusions, she developed septic shock and fulminant multiple organ failure with eventual demise. In this article, we highlight multiple tick-borne illnesses in a vulnerable host, in this case an elderly patient with liver cirrhosis, as risk factors for severe morbidity and potentially fatal outcomes.
2015 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.