Tokyo, June 24 :The first case of human death from the tick-borne Oz virus has been officially confirmed in Japan, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said on Saturday.

The Oz virus was discovered in Japan in 2018; it has not been found outside of the country.

The first fatal case among humans occurred in the summer of 2022, when a woman in her 70s died in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture after contracting the virus, according to NIID data released on Friday.

The woman exhibited symptoms including fever and fatigue after getting bitten by a tick.

She was hospitalized with pneumonia and died nearly a month later of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, NIID said.