Experts are bracing for another year of tick concerns following a severe season in 2025.

Health experts are now raising concerns about the tick-borne illness known as babesiosis, which they say is on the rise in the United States.

“Patients can be hospitalized and they can develop multi-organ failure and even death,” says Dr. David Leaf, of the Renal Division of Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine.

Leaf says antibiotics will treat most patients with the illness. But he says that for those who are most vulnerable, like older patients or those who are immunocompromised, antibiotics may not be enough.

“When those patients get very sick, they sometimes receive a therapy called red blood cell exchange transfusion,” he says.

He explains that this is a way of exchanging a patient’s infected red blood cells with healthy ones.

Leaf says reported cases of babesiosis have increased over the past several decades in the U.S.