Former U.S. Senator Kay Hagan has died.
The North Carolina Democrat unseated former Senator Elizabeth Dole, Bob Dole’s wife, in 2008 and then herself was unseated by Tom Tillis in 2014. Hagan, 65, had served 10 years in the North Carolina State Senate.
She fell ill in Washington, D.C. in 2016 and was diagnosed with brain inflammation caused by the Powassan virus, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes as a rare infection spread from ticks to humans. The CDC says an average of nine Powassan virus cases a year were reported from 2007-2016; ten percent of Powassan encephalitis cases are fatal and officials say about half the survivors have permanent neurological symptoms.
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