Stopping A Deadly Disease On Apache Lands

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is one of the deadliest tickborne diseases in the United States, often killing people within about a week if left untreated. At one point, the San Carlos Apache Reservation had rates of infection 150 times the national average. But now, they've achieved a huge milestone — no deaths from the disease in at least five years. NPR science correspondent Pien Huang and producer Megan Lim visited the reservation to see the program that led to their success.

Read Pien's full story here.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from Bowlen Branch.
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0:14.7	Exclusions apply. See site for details.
0:18.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:23.0	Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with health correspondent Ping Huang and NPR producer Megan Lim.
0:28.6	Hi, you both.
0:29.3	Hey, hey.
0:30.0	Hey, hey.
0:30.6	And you're here to tell us some good news.
0:32.8	Yes, Megan and I are here to tell you a public health success story.
0:37.2	It's got puppies and it's got ticks and winning.
0:40.5	And they're winning against Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is one of the deadliest
0:44.8	tick-borne diseases in the U.S.
0:46.9	Oh, are we going to Colorado? Are we going to the Rocky Mountains?
0:49.5	Not quite, not quite. So for this story, we're actually going to take you out to a corner
0:53.5	of southeast Arizona to the San Carlos Apache Tribal lands.
0:58.2	It's remote. It's beautiful, you know, purple mountains and mesas, and they're covered in these creosote bushes and these spiky, saguaro cactuses, a bit east of Phoenix.
1:10.5	And the people in these tribal lands in Arizona have been battling Rocky Mountain spotted fever
1:14.9	for about 20 years.
1:17.4	Yeah, at one point, they had rates that were 150 times out of the national average.
1:22.4	But by the time that Megan and I visited, they were reaching a huge milestone. No deaths from the disease in five years.
	...

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