He has found a gallery of pathogens that threaten poultry, humans, or both: influenza and Newcastle disease virus, Campylobacter, Salmonella, Yersinia, tick-borne encephalitis virus, Candidatus, Babesia, Rickettsia, and papillomavirus.

There were two possibilities: babesia — a tick-borne parasite seen mainly in the Northeast and upper Midwest in the United States — or malaria, a mosquito-borne infection that is common in much of the world but not here in this country.

And while babesia has never been reported in Colorado and only once in the past five years in Montana, it had certainly been seen in other states across the U.S.

Babesia microti is a parasite that, like malaria, invades red blood cells to reproduce.

They should order a test for Babesia as well as one for Lyme, ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis — the most common tick-borne diseases in Connecticut.