Is there really a ‘big epidemic’ of tick diseases? CDC warns about 7 new viruses
Experts say we can expect each tick season to be worse than the last.
by Linda Carroll, Updated Source: TODAY
A recent afternoon walk turned into a tick attack for a Massachusetts man.
As community forester Derek Lirange was hiking around the Tower Hill Botanic Gardens in Worcester on May 16, he spotted a few ticks on his pants. Within a few more minutes, there were five or six more ticks, followed by more and more. By the end of the hike, he counted 26 ticks.
“It’s a big epidemic affecting the entire East Coast,” said Toledo. “Witness the spread of the deer tick to the north and west.”
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And it’s not just deer ticks we now have to worry about. The numbers of Lone Star ticks, which can trigger an allergy to red meat, are also on the rise and their habitat continues to expand, Toledo says.
In its recent report, the CDC said there have been seven new tick-borne viruses discovered to infect people since 2004.
WHY MORE TICKS?
One big factor leading to the so-called tick explosion is the overall warming trend. But there are several factors beyond warming weather driving the rise in tick numbers, experts say. One is the booming numbers of deer and rodents. Deer, which are the preferred hosts of adult ticks, are increasing in numbers, “because basically there are no predators anymore,” Toledo says.
More deer means more female adult ticks go on to lay eggs.
High numbers of rodents also drive the numbers of ticks. After hatching from eggs, tick larvae attach to rodents to feed and, unfortunately for us, pick up diseases like Lyme and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Once the larvae get their meal of blood, they move on to the next phase of their cycle, the nymph stage, which is when they’re most likely to latch on to a human.
Though both nymphs and adults can transmit disease, the nymphs are more likely to do so because of their small size. Adult ticks are big enough to be easy to spot and get rid of before they can pass on diseases like Lyme. Nymphs are much smaller and often attach long enough to transmit disease without our ever spotting them.
And while deer ticks are most likely to be the ones transmitting Lyme and lone star ticks, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, dog ticks and a new invader, the Longhorned tick, can also carry and transmit disease.
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Experts used to tell people they’d be safe from tick bites if they kept their lawns mowed and stayed out of wooded areas—and that’s still mostly true for deer ticks. But Lone star ticks and dog ticks, which both can carry diseases and bite humans, are perfectly happy roaming through mowed lawns, said Matt Frye, an entomologist at Cornell University.
Frye says we should just accept that every year now is going to be a bad tick year. That means we should get serious about examining our bodies for ticks. “You should do a tick check every day, like you brush your teeth every day,” he said.
The situation isn’t entirely hopeless. Though there are no real natural enemies of ticks, researchers are working on some ingenious ways of knocking their numbers back. One method currently being tested in communities with high numbers of ticks is to treat rodents with tick-killing substances, Frye said. Boxes baited for the rodents give them a dose of the same tick poison used to protect dogs.
The idea is that if you can lower the numbers of ticks that make it to the nymph stage, fewer people will be infected. That method is still being tested, so it won’t help any of us right now.
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In the meantime, if you do spot a tick and want to know what kind it is and whether it’s carrying a disease, you can send it to a lab for testing, said Laura Goodman, an assistant research professor at Cornell.
She suggests you place your tick in a sealed, escape-proof container and ship it to Cornell or one of the other certified labs around the country. One of the best ways to kill the tick, Goodman says, is to place the container in your freezer. The shock from going directly from warm weather to freezing temperatures will be enough to do in your tick, she said.
TODAY.com writer Meghan Holohan contributed to this report
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**Comment**
Gone are the days of frolicking in the yard in shorts and sandals…..
BTW: Ticks love wood chips. They use them like leaf-litter and burrow underneath where it’s moist. They also love Japanese Barberries as other invasives that harbor moisture at the base where they hang out.
In my yard, there has been a chipmunk invasion in all my landscape beds. They love the natural rock/boulders that have gaps between them. They burrow into these gaps and create colonies by tunneling into the dirt. As they work, they deposit ticks everywhere. I would avoid using these rocks and wood chips as much as possible and steer toward interlinking stones without gaps, weed barrier, and rock. (Think Fort Knox)
As much as we love nature, keep it away from your living quarters and spray any suspected areas with an acaracide. And far more than white-footed mice and deer carry these suckers. Your neighborhood squirrel, chipmunk, opossum, bird, fox, raccoon, and on and on to infinity are scattering ticks.
I’m thankful they are finally admitting that other ticks are problematic. I’ve always scratched my head when “experts” keep saying the sole perp is the dastardly black legged tick. Treat every tick like a land mine. They all exchange fluids with creatures. Do the math.
When you do go outside into grass, preferably wear white shoes and socks sprayed with permethrin and tuck your light colored pants that have also been sprayed, into your socks. Ideally you would have a long sleeved white shirt that has also been sprayed and if you are going underneath any trees, shrubs, overhanging plants, wear a hat that has also been sprayed.
This is war, people!
More ideas: https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/05/11/tick-prevention-and-removal-2017/
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 