Health Highlights: July 16, 2015

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

High-Risk Areas for Lyme Disease Increasing in U.S.

There has been a significant increase of areas in the United States where people are at high risk for Lyme disease, a federal government study says.

There are now 260 counties where the number of Lyme disease cases is at least twice as high as what’s expected given the size of a county’s population, up from 130 counties a decade ago, the Associated Press reported.

“The risk is expanding, in all directions,” Kiersten Kugeler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. She is lead author of the study published Wednesday in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Lyme disease cases are concentrated in the Northeast and upper Midwest, and this study said more areas in those regions are now considered high-risk for the tick-borne disease, the AP reported.

All of Connecticut has been considered high-risk for decades. Now, nearly all of Massachusetts and New Hampshire are classified as high-risk, along with more than half of Maine and Vermont.

Other states with newly-added high-risk areas include Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the AP reported.

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George H.W. Bush Breaks Neck Bone in Fall

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush was taken to hospital after suffering a broken bone in his neck in a fall.

Bush, 91, fell on Wednesday at his summer home in Kennebunkport. He was fitted with a brace and is doing O.K., according to a Bush spokesman, the Associated Press reported.

“(Bush) fell at home in Maine today and broke a bone in his neck,” spokesman Jim McGrath tweeted Wednesday night. “His condition is stable — he is fine — but he’ll be in a neck brace.”

The 41st U.S. president was being treated at Portland’s Maine Medical Center, which confirmed his condition as stable. The hospital said Bush would remain there at least overnight but would not say when he might be released, the AP reported.

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