The Asian longhorned tick can cause serious infestations in livestock and pets | Photo: Wikipedia
“I’VE BEEN DREADING THE DAY THEY FOUND THEM IN TENNESSEE. IT COULD BE A HUGE PROBLEM FOR PETS AND LIVESTOCK.”
DR. KRISTI SHARPE, DVM
The Asian longhorned tick has arrived in East Tennessee, state officials said late Friday.
The state Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture announced jointly late Friday afternoon that the invasive parasitic species has been found in two locations in East Tennessee — making the Volunteer State the 11th state to be impacted by the tick’s spread.
Two Asian longhorned ticks were recently found on a dog in Union County, officials said, and five were found on a cow in Roane County.
“Tennessee has a relatively large amount and variety of ticks,” said Dr. R.T. Trout Fryxell, associate professor of medical and veterinary entomology at the University of Tennessee. “It is important to be diligent and keep an eye out for all ticks because many varieties can transmit pathogens or cause painful bites.”
The longhorned tick is native to East Asia. While it had been intercepted at ports on imported animals several times, it was not known to exist in the mainland United States until November 2017, when it was discovered on a sheep farm in New Jersey. Efforts to eradicate it there failed; it over-wintered and established itself as an invasive species before later beginning to spread to other states. The tick’s spread is primarily due to birds; the ticks attach themselves to various species of birds and travel quickly.
“I’ve been dreading the day they found them in Tennessee,” said Dr. Kristi Sharpe, a veterinarian at Highland Veterinary Hospital in Oneida. “It could be a huge problem for pets and livestock.”
The longhorned tick is known to be a livestock pest, feeding on farm animals like cattle, horses, sheep, pigs and chickens. It has also been on dogs and cats, as well as humans. Infestations occur in the wild, as well. So far, the tick has been found on 17 different species of mammals in the U.S.
“The female ticks can clone themselves and don’t necessarily require a male to mate and reproduce,” Sharpe said. “This equates to a tick that can cause an infestation much more rapidly than those that have to mate.”
Infestations can be serious in animals. The ticks have been known to cause such serious infestations in pets and livestock that they insanguinate their host — or drain it of blood — Sharpe said.
The ticks are also a concern as disease-carriers. They transmit a disease called theileriosis to cattle, which can cause death in calves and decreased milk production in dairy cattle.
“It can also carry Huaiyangshan banyang virus which causes severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome,” Sharpe said. “SFTS is a condition that causes bleeding disorders and organ damage. So far none of the ticks in the U.S. have tested positive for this virus, but it is considered endemic in China and other Asian countries. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the arrival of this tick in the U.S. could have introduced yet another tick-borne disease we have to worry about.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has reported that there is no evidence that the tick has transmitted pathogens to humans or animals in the U.S. so far.
Sharpe said researchers are unsure of the longhorned tick’s ability to transmit diseases like Lyme and Ehrlichia. But, she said,”the potential is definitely there.”
Sharpe said that people should follow general precautions to protect against all ticks. That includes using an FDA-approved repellent, tucking your pants into your socks when you’re out and about in the woods, and doing nightly tick checks on yourself and your pets.
“All veterinary-labeled tick preventatives should provide protection against the Asian longhorn,” she said. “Don’t trust grocery store brands because they usually do not provide adequate tick coverage.”
Fryxell recommended that pet owners and farmers who find a tick on an animal should put the tick in a ziplock bag after removing it with tweezers, writing down the date and where the tick was most likely encountered, and storing it in a freezer. “If any symptoms of a tick-borne disease begin to develop, you should bring the tick to your veterinarian,” Fryxell said.
_________________
**Comment**
The Asian Long-horned tick continues its march into the U.S. unabated.
I’m very thankful for the honest reporting and the blame on birds for spreading ticks, not climate change.
I also appreciate the statement that while Lyme and other diseases have not been found to be transmitted from the Asian tick in the U.S. to date, the potential is there.
https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/01/14/multistate-infestation-with-the-exotic-disease-vector-tick-haemaphysalis-longhornis-u-s-aug-2017-sept-2018/Where this tick exists, it is an important vector of human and animal disease agents. In China and Japan, it transmits the severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), which causes a human hemorrhagic fever (2), and Rickettsia japonica, which causes Japanese spotted fever (3). Studies in Asia identified ticks infected with various species of Anaplasma, Babesia, Borrelia, Ehrlichia, and Rickettsia, and all of these pathogen groups circulate zoonotically in the United States (4,5). In addition, parthenogenetic reproduction, a biologic characteristic of this species, allows a single introduced female tick to generate progeny without mating, thus resulting in massive host infestations.
The Czech Republic recorded the highest number of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) cases in the EU last year. In the whole of Europe, only Russia recorded more cases of the potentially deadly disease.
There were 712 recorded TBE cases in the country last year, the highest number since 2011, a Czech member of the International Scientific Working Group on TBE (ISW-TBE) said in a press release on Thursday.
Only about one quarter of inhabitants of the Czech Republic are vaccinated against TBE, a low percentage compared to other EU countries. Within the bloc, the second-highest number of TBE cases was recorded in Germany, which has a population eight times larger.
Encephalitis patients suffer from fever, headache, aching joints and muscles. It can develop into meningitis.
A Lyme disease infected tick is pictured crawling on wood in this undated file photo. (Getty Images)
Nice weather is here and you’re out and about? Be on the lookout for eight-legged menaces on the march. Tick populations armed with the Borrelia bacteria are increasingly creeping into Canada, expanding and growing – and so too the number of tick-borne diseases, predominantly Lyme.
It’s a ticking Lyme bomb, and vastly under-detected across Canada. Dr. Vett Lloyd, a researcher and biology professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, says eight out of 10 cases are being missed – along the coast, the number is higher.
The majority of Canadians who have Lyme disease are slipping through the cracks.
“Diagnosis is missed when Lyme disease is not considered as a diagnosis by the physician or patient and when the standard blood testing procedure is fault,” says Lloyd, a member of the new Lyme Disease and Tick-Borne Illnesses Task Force.
Decades-old testing protocols are a failure. Patients and advocacy groups report access-to-care a nightmare. If the disease is treated promptly with antibiotics, people get better. No treatment, and the illness becomes chronic and debilitating. Even deadly.
“It’s a serious and growing epidemic,” says Sue Faber, co-founder of the advocacy group LymeHope. She believes that because of so many missed cases of Lyme disease, “instead of 2,025 annual cases reported by Public Health of Canada, we are actually dealing with approximately 56,000 cases every year in Canada.”
Lyme-disease-carrying ticks are deposited randomly by our friendly migratory birds, such as wrens and robins. Lloyd actually got bit by a tick in her backyard – she describes her Lyme disease battle as “hell.” That’s how many would also describe navigating the health care system for diagnosis and treatment.
Many Canadians are being alienated by the conventional health-care system and seek costly private health care, even beyond the country’s borders, at their own expense, says Lloyd. Others follow home remedies obtained from Dr. Google and either natural products or antibiotics purchased from the black or grey market.
Adds Lloyd: “When Canadians are obtaining health care from the internet and antibiotics from their local drug dealers, I think it is safe to say that the current situation is both dangerous and cruel.”
Dr. Vett Lloyd. (Supplied photo)
Climate change is empowering ticks to grow in numbers. places and pathogens, says Mary Beth Pfeiffer, investigative journalist and author of Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change. “By virtue of the developed world’s lifestyle and influence… we have paved the way for the first global epidemic abetted by climate change. Warming may not have caused this scourge, but it most certainly is enabling it.”
Winnipeg resident Joanne Seiff describes Lyme as “insidious. Being sick with Lyme is awful, and it creeps along – you feel worse and worse but it’s hard to get anyone to believe you.”
She got sick in May, 2016 with what felt like the flu.
“I had recurring fevers, swelling and fatigue that progressed to swollen joints, lymph nodes, and other Lyme symptoms.”
She saw multiple physicians, including specialists, and was dismissed in every case.
“Canadian health systems are unprepared for this. Doctors aren’t well-trained, labs don’t test for all the strains, cases are under-reported and there’s a real sense of disbelief that Lyme – and other tick-borne illnesses – exist here,” says Seiff, author and knitwear designer at joanneseiff.com.
Doctors need to become better educated and responsive, says Seiff, and “follow the protocol that suggests an immediate, prophylactic dose of doxycycline if Lyme disease is at all suspected.”
She also believes laboratory testing needs major updating and tick research proper funding.
Adds Lloyd: “The cost to individual Canadians ill with Lyme disease, and their families and communities, is already appalling in terms of personal suffering. At some point that will translate into a societal cost and change will have to happen.”
It’s a polarizing issue, and what’s more, Faber, a nurse, wants the public to know that
“human to human maternal transmission has been demonstrated in peer-reviewed medical and scientific literature. Lyme disease can be transmitted from mother-to-baby in utero causing miscarriage, death and/or newborn infection.”
Both Faber and LymeHope (lymehope.ca) co-founder/lawyer Jennifer Kravis believe they unknowingly transmitted Lyme disease to their children while pregnant. The medical world isn’t convinced, including the Health Canada website, that says “there is not enough evidence to confirm that Lyme disease during pregnancy has adverse effects for the fetus…”
Meanwhile, if you suspect you have Lyme disease, Jim Wilson, of Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, advises “asking your doctor for the standard Lyme test with the full understanding that if the results comes back negative that in no way rules out Lyme disease.” More guidance is available at canlyme.com, including prevention and safe tick removal.
Protect yourself with tips from microbiologist and author Jason Tetro:
When outside, wear long, light-coloured protective clothing and tuck in pant legs into socks or boots.
Always use a product containing DEET such as Off! Deep Woods Tick.
After being outdoors, check your entire body for ticks including under the arms, inside the belly button and in and around the hair. Check your clothing, gear and pets for ticks.
Shower within two hours of coming indoors and throw clothing in a dryer on high heat for 10 minutes.
Yolanda Hadid Opens Up About Her Battle With Lyme Disease
**Comment**
Once again, an independent Canadian tick researcher has proven that climate change has ZIPPO to do with this, despite what a journalist selling a book with that title states.
I find it highly interesting that groups will promote Pffeifer’s book but not actual research showing how ticks proliferate. To state that climate change is “empowering ticks,” shows a real lack of understanding of ticks. They are extremely ecoadaptive and will be the last species on the planet besides the IRS.
It’s important we do not fall prey as Science has to populism and schticks in efforts of obtaining grant money for research. Lyme/MSIDS has been driven by politics and power since inception.
We should know better and refuse to climb into bed with the devil.
Climate data never has and never will help extremely sick patients. So much research on practical issues is screaming to be done that will actually make a difference.
New research from theCompanion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC)gives people and their health care providers a way to assess their risk for Lyme disease, thanks to man’s best friend. The studyconfirms dogs are sentinels to assess human risk for tick-borne Lyme disease.
Lyme disease (LD) is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Early confirmatory diagnosis remains a challenge, while the disease can be debilitating if left untreated. Further, the decision to test is complicated by under-reporting, low positive predictive values of testing in non-endemic areas and travel, which together exacerbate the difficulty in identification of newly endemic areas or areas of emerging concern. Spatio-temporal analyses at the national scale are critical to establishing a baseline human LD risk assessment tool that would allow for the detection of changes in these areas. A well-established surrogate for human LD incidence is canine LD seroprevalence, making it a strong candidate covariate for use in such analyses. In this paper, Bayesian statistical methods were used to fit a spatio-temporal spline regression model to estimate the relationship between human LD incidence and canine seroprevalence, treating the latter as an explanatory covariate. A strong non-linear monotonically increasing association was found. That is, this analysis suggests that mean incidence in humans increases with canine seroprevalence until the seroprevalence in dogs reaches approximately 30%. This finding reinforces the use of canines as sentinels for human LD risk, especially with respect to identifying geographic areas of concern for potential human exposure.
Joining me to discuss the study and it’s uses is Dr. Craig Prior. Dr. Prior is a board member and past-president of the Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC). From Australia, he’s been a practicing veterinarian in Nashville, Tennessee for over 25 years and currently consults with vets nationwide.
Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is associated with high mortality and requires prompt identification and treatment to ensure better outcomes.
Case Report:
We describe an advanced case of RMSF in a 45-year-old female patient with pet dog exposure who presented with altered mental status, dyspnea, and ataxia progressing to septic shock and acute hypoxic respiratory failure requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation.
Conclusions:
This case illustrates the importance of keeping RMSF in the differential diagnosis in patient populations outside of the usual geographic areas of incidence in the appropriate clinical setting.
___________________
**Comment**
This is what can happen when diagnosis is delayed.
This woman that lived in the suburbs had a 7-day history of fevers associated with headache, arthralgias, nausea, fatigue, and neck pain, but did NOT have the tell-tale blotchy RMSF rash.
Two days later, she worsened with confusion, combativeness, dyspnea, and ataxia. She got multiple recent bug bites from her pet dogs sleeping inher bed. The dogs were not up to date on flea and tick medication but were healthy and showed no sign of illness.
Rule #1: Do NOT sleep with pets. The risk is too great.
Rule #2: If you choose to have pets, make sure you treat them if they go outdoors. The risk is too great.
Rule #3: Doctors need to start treating this plague with the respect it deserves and frankly should keep it in the back of their minds AT ALL TIMES.
Positive findings were R. typhi IgM 1: 1024 (normal <1: 64), R. Rickettsii IgM 1: 1024 (normal <1: 64), IgG 1: 128 (normal <1: 64), and echovirus Ab 1: 80 titer (normal <1: 80). The Rickettsial titers were repeated for possible cross-reactivity and R. typhi antibodies were noted to be negative (<1: 64).
Although R.typhi was ruled out due to cross-reactivity, I believe we will start seeing more of this strain in the future.
The patient improved on doxycycline, the drug of choice for RMSF and was discharged.
