Latest news with #tickborneDiseases
Fox News
27-06-2025
- Health
- Fox News
Ticks spread to new regions across America, bringing dangerous diseases and need for vigilance
Ticks are spreading outside their comfort zone – and into ours, according to experts. As cooler regions experience milder winters, those areas are becoming more hospitable to many tick species, Bob Hottel, an entomologist with Orkin, the pest control company, told Fox News Digital. This is because ticks prefer warmer climates. While the insects previously would go dormant in the cold — leaving them unable to travel very far — they're now able to stay active longer, clinging to hosts that carry them outside their typical regions. In recent years, experts at Binghamton University Tick-borne Disease Center in New York have reported that tick-borne illnesses - typically confined to specific regions – are beginning to show up in other parts of the country. "Deer ticks are active any time it's over 39 degrees, so we have a lot longer active periods for ticks now, unfortunately," Yetrib Hathout, professor of pharmaceutical sciences and director of the tick-born disease center, told Binghamton University previously. The number of concerning tick species has risen from one to five in the last 15 years, according to experts at Ohio State University. Given the spread of ticks, Ohio State University's Buckeye Tick Test Lab is now identifying "the most dangerous ticks that spread diseases." Hottel of Orkin said it's important for people to stay vigilant as they're frequently outdoors at this time of year. He said people need to exercise caution regarding certain species, the bites they can deliver and the disease they can cause. "Tick surveillance and tick screening are important." The blacklegged tick (or deer tick) is best known for transmitting Lyme disease, especially in the Northeast, Midwest, and Appalachian regions. While many people are aware of Lyme disease carried by the deer tick, fewer are aware of other dangerous diseases such as alpha-gal syndrome, which is spread by the lone star tick; it can trigger an allergy to red meat. The American dog tick, found mostly east of the Rockies, can spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, and even cause tick paralysis. Its cousin, the Rocky Mountain wood tick, poses similar risks in high-elevation areas of the Rockies. "Some of the pathogens that are only found in the South, like the Rickettsia species that causes spotted fever, are migrating up north," according to Hathout. "That's why tick surveillance and tick screening for other things are important. And I think it's important to do it regularly." Hottel told Fox News Digital, "Awareness is the first step in protecting yourself from tick-borne illness." Among the precautionary steps to take, say experts: Wear long clothing, use tick repellents and check for ticks after outdoor activity. Knowing which species to watch for can also help prevent serious tick-borne illness. For more Lifestyle articles, visit "Another reason for the spread of ticks is the expansion of human developments into wildlife habitats, which helps ticks more easily find human hosts," said Hottel. Ticks find their hosts by detecting animals' breath and body odors, or by sensing body heat, moisture and vibrations, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). "Some species can even recognize a shadow," the CDC site says. In addition, ticks pick a place to wait by identifying well-used paths. Then they wait for a host, resting on the tips of grasses and shrubs. Ticks can't fly or jump — but many tick species wait in this position known as "questing."
CBC
23-06-2025
- Health
- CBC
N.S. has the most ticks in Canada — here's how to protect yourself
Head of the Lloyd Tick Lab shares prevention tips and what to do if a tick latches on The Nova Scotia government recently put out a reminder for people to protect themselves against tick-borne diseases, saying tick populations are growing in every part of the province — in both urban and rural areas. Vett Lloyd, a biology professor at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B., and the head of the Lloyd Tick Lab, shared tips with CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia on how to deal with the insect. This interview has been shortened for length and clarity. LISTEN | Information Morning Halifax's interview with tick expert Vett Lloyd: Media Audio | Information Morning - NS : Tick-borne illnesses and tick removal techniques Caption: The provincial government is reminding people to protect themselves against tick-borne diseases. It said tick populations are growing in every part of the province, both urban and rural. Vett Lloyd, head of the Lloyd Tick Lab, talks about tick populations and preventative measures for tick season. Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. Does Nova Scotia have more ticks than usual this year? Unfortunately, yes we do. It was a good winter for ticks. It was a mild, long, cool fall [and] a long, cool spring — a perfect season for ticks. Unfortunately, people are finding them and when we go out, we're finding huge numbers of ticks too. Congratulations to all of Nova Scotia. You win not only the regional contest for who has the most ticks, but nationally. New Brunswick is following behind. P.E.I. is getting a steadily increasing number of ticks. The thing is, once a female tick grabs a blood meal in the fall she will then be able to lay about 2,000 to 3,000 eggs. Their populations can increase really quickly. How is this information tracked? They're not being tracked in a national way, so they're tracked by proxy — so how many people submit pictures of ticks to the government tick-tracking site, eTick. We monitor them indirectly by the number of people who send them in to get tested. And obviously we're only encountering a small number of ticks and some people who are just used to them just kill them and get rid of them. Lyme disease is the main concern with ticks, but we've seen other pathogens that are showing up in recent years. How much of a concern is anaplasmosis? Veterinarians have been monitoring anaplasmosis for the past 10 years or so and they've seen it increase in frequency and also — along with the ticks — spreading northward. Anaplasmosis is a scary disease. If you get sick from it, you get very, very sick and you end up in the [emergency room]. If you're lucky, your ER doctor will realize quickly the fact that you've run out of blood cells. It does respond to treatment, as long as you get treatment. Is anaplasmosis potentially fatal? Yes. Can you get multiple kinds of illnesses from ticks? Can you get anaplasmosis and Lyme disease? Unfortunately, ticks are basically crawly bags of pathogens, so they will frequently have more than one pathogen and they can pass it on, which means that you just get extra sick. It's not just Lyme disease and anaplasmosis. We're also worried about babesiosis, which is a type of parasite. Those are the big ones coming up in this region. It's grim, but at the same time, people need to get outside and enjoy the outside. Quivering inside isn't going to help. There's also pediatric Lyme arthritis. Last summer, a memo was sent by the provincial medical officer of health to health-care practitioners to look out for it. What do you know about that? In an older adult, you would expect arthritis. But if you have an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old suddenly developing arthritis — particularly if it's just in one knee, but not both knees — that memo served to alert physicians that they should think about Lyme disease in that case. So with more Lyme disease, it's showing up in kids. Kids are small, they run around outside and they emit a lot of carbon dioxide, so they're super attractive to ticks. If there's more ticks, are we more likely to see tick-borne illnesses? Unfortunately, yes. But we can modify that to some extent by people just becoming more alert about prevention and doing tick checks. We know they're attracted to moist, warm areas, so people need to check armpits, groins and all of that. How do we properly remove ticks? If you're coming in from outside, do a tick check. That's a really good line of defence. Before you go outside, there are prevention things you can do. There are really good tools for dogs, various tick repellents and things that kill the ticks before the ticks feed long enough to give disease. There are also Lyme vaccines for dogs. For humans, the idea is that we have less hair so we're better at finding ticks [on ourselves]. From the ticks' perspective, we don't smell as good [as dogs]. The tick sprays, bug sprays that say they're good for ticks, are generally a good idea. If you're in a high-risk area, you can get clothing that has a repellent in it — commercial or you can make it yourself. When you come in, do a tick check. Strip down. Yes, check moist areas, but if your tick is hungry it could be anywhere. You're looking for freckles with legs. Freckles are not supposed to have legs. If they do, get it off you. There is a lot of mythology about how you remove ticks. Getting it off you is the main point. The bit that will be left embedded in your skin is the mouth part, which is not actually a risk to you. You don't want to squish the tick gut contents back into your bloodstream and you don't want to smear it on cuts.
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
There's a Shocking Reason Ticks Are So Dangerous (It's Us)
When you think about ticks, you might picture nightmarish little parasites, stalking you on weekend hikes or afternoons in the park. Your fear is well-founded. Tick-borne diseases are the most prevalent vector-borne diseases – those transmitted by living organisms – in the United States. Each tick feeds on multiple animals throughout its life, absorbing viruses and bacteria along the way and passing them on with its next bite. Some of those viruses and bacteria are harmful to humans, causing diseases that can be debilitating and sometimes lethal without treatment, such as Lyme, babesiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But contained in every bite of this infuriating, insatiable pest is also a trove of social, environmental and epidemiological history. In many cases, human actions long ago are the reason ticks carry these diseases so widely today. And that's what makes ticks fascinating for environmental historians like me. During the 18th and 19th centuries, settlers cleared more than half the forested land across the northeastern U.S., cutting down forests for timber and to make way for farms, towns and mining operations. With large-scale land clearing came a sharp decline in wildlife of all kinds. Predators such as bears and wolves were driven out, as were deer. As farming moved westward, Northeasterners began to recognize the ecological and economic value of trees, and they returned millions of acres to forest. The woods regrew. Plant-eaters such as deer returned, but the apex predators that once kept their populations in check did not. As a result, deer populations grew rapidly. With the deer came deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) carrying borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. When a tick feeds on an infected animal, it can take up the bacteria. The tick can pass the bacteria to its next victim. In humans, Lyme disease can cause fever and fatigue, and if left untreated it can affect the nervous system. The eastern U.S. became a global hot spot for tick-borne Lyme disease starting around the 1970s. Lyme disease affected over 89,000 Americans in 2023, and possibly many more. For centuries, changing patterns of human settlements and the politics of land use have shaped the role of ticks and tick-borne illnesses within their environments. In short, humans have made it easier for ticks to thrive and spread disease in our midst. In California, the Northern Inner Coast and Santa Cruz mountain ranges that converge on San Francisco from the north and south were never clear-cut, and predators such as mountain lions and coyotes still exist there. But competition for housing has pushed human settlement deeper into wildland areas to the north, south and east of the city, reshaping tick ecology there. While western black-legged ticks (Ixodes pacificus) tend to swarm in large forest preserves, the Lyme-causing bacterium is actually more prevalent in small, isolated patches of greenery. In these isolated patches, rodents and other tick hosts can thrive, safe from large predators, which need more habitat to move freely. But isolation and lower diversity also means infections are spread more easily within the tick's host populations. People tend to build isolated houses in the hills, rather than large, connected developments. As the Silicon Valley area south of San Francisco sprawls outward, this checkerboard pattern of settlement has fragmented the natural landscape, creating a hard-to-manage public health threat. Fewer hosts, more tightly packed, often means more infected hosts, proportionally, and thus more dangerous ticks. Six counties across these ranges, all surrounding and including San Francisco, account for 44% of recorded tick-borne illnesses in California. Domesticated livestock have also shaped the disease threat posed by ticks. In 1892, at a meeting of cattle ranchers at the Stock Raiser's Convention in Austin, Texas, Dr. B.A. Rogers introduced a novel theory that ticks were behind recent devastating plagues of Texas cattle fever. The disease had arrived with cattle imported from the West Indies and Mexico in the 1600s, and it was taking huge tolls on cattle herds. But how the disease spread to new victims had been a mystery. Editors of Daniel's Texas Medical Journal found the idea of ticks spreading disease laughable and lampooned the hypothesis, publishing a satire of what they described as an "early copy" of a forthcoming report on the subject. The tick's "fluid secretion, it is believed, is the poison which causes the fever … [and the tick] having been known to chew tobacco, as all other Texans do, the secretion is most probably tobacco juice," they wrote. Fortunately for the ranchers, not to mention the cows, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sided with Rogers. Its cattle fever tick program, started in 1906, curbed cattle fever outbreaks by limiting where and when cattle should cross tick-dense areas. By 1938, the government had established a quarantine zone that extended 580 miles by 10 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas Brush Country, a region favored by the cattle tick. This innovative use of natural space as a public health tool helped to functionally eradicate cattle fever from 14 Southern states by 1943. When it comes to tick-borne diseases the world over, location matters. Take the hunter tick (Hyalomma spp.) of the Mediterranean and Asia. As a juvenile, or nymph, these ticks feed on small forest animals such as mice, hares and voles, but as an adult they prefer domesticated livestock. For centuries, this tick was an occasional nuisance to nomadic shepherds of the Middle East. But in the 1850s, the Ottoman Empire passed laws to force nomadic tribes to become settled farmers instead. Unclaimed lands, especially on the forested edges of the steppe, were offered to settlers, creating ideal conditions for hunter ticks. As a result, farmers in what today is Turkey saw spikes in tick-borne diseases, including a virus that causes Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a potentially fatal condition. It's probably too much to ask for sympathy for any ticks you meet this summer. They are bloodsucking parasites, after all. Still, it's worth remembering that the tick's malevolence isn't its own fault. Ticks are products of their environment, and humans have played many roles in turning them into the harmful parasites that seek us out today. Sean Lawrence, Assistant Professor of History, West Virginia University This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Health officials issue urgent warning after discovering first case of deadly bacteria carried by tick in US: 'Raising public awareness … is critical'
Researchers in Connecticut have identified a dangerous pathogen carried by a rapidly spreading, invasive species of tick, Patch reported. The Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) is considered invasive in the United States, with initial sightings recorded in 2010, 2013, and 2017. Many tick species pose a risk to human health because of their efficacy in spreading disease, particularly bloodborne illnesses such as Lyme disease, babesiosis, and ehrlichiosis. That third pathogen is the one found by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. According to NBC Connecticut, an Asian longhorned tick that tested positive for the bacterium responsible for ehrlichiosis "was found in Fairfield County sometime between 2021 and now." "This discovery highlights the growing threat posed by invasive ticks," CAES Passive Tick and Tick-Borne Disease Surveillance Program Director Goudarz Molaei said. "Raising public awareness of emerging tick-borne illnesses is critical to both human and veterinary health." Tickborne disease has been on the rise for decades. "As typically colder and drier climates become warmer and wetter, there has been an expansion of ticks in the northern hemisphere and at higher altitudes where they were previously unable to survive," a Pfizer advisory cautioned. Scientists say rising temperatures and volatile weather patterns are driving their incursions into new areas, as a study published in Scientific Reports in January evidenced. Because the Asian longhorned tick is a relative newcomer to the U.S., researchers are still working to determine the gravity of the risk it poses to both humans and animals. Researcher Risa Pesapane co-authored a paper about the species and its effect on livestock, citing the deaths of three head of cattle in Oklahoma in 2021. Do you worry about getting diseases from bug bites? Absolutely Only when I'm camping or hiking Not really Never Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "To have been taken down by exsanguination by ticks, you can imagine that was tens of thousands of ticks on one animal," she explained. At first glance, the worrisome proliferation of disease-spreading ticks seems insurmountable — but there are ways to reduce your risk of tick encounters and tick-related illnesses. Chemical-free pest control methods are one way to avoid tick bites, and the Global Lyme Alliance recommends "products that use picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus" as effective deterrents on par with chemical pesticides. Surprisingly, rewilding your yard may be another way to reduce the risk of encountering ticks, according to the David Suzuki Foundation. "A growing body of ecological evidence … shows that replacing lawns with native plant gardens can disrupt tick-host interactions and reduce tick-borne disease risk, while also restoring biodiversity," the Foundation wrote. Pesapane urged a multifaceted strategy for tick mitigation. "For a variety of reasons, I tell people you cannot spray your way out of an Asian longhorned tick infestation — it will require an integrated approach," she explained. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Alpha Gal Syndrome on the rise in the Mountain State
GHENT, WV (WVNS) — A different kind of tickborne disease is on the rise in West Virginia. Alpha Gal Syndrome cases are becoming more and more common as awareness spreads and people begin to get the proper diagnosis. Snake season: What to do if you find a snake in your yard There are a variety of tickborne diseases that affect people in the Mountain State, and you have probably heard of most of them. One of the most common is Lyme disease, which is spread by deer ticks. However, one you may not know much about, although it can have lifelong consequences, is Alpha Gal Syndrome. Dr. Zonaira Gul, an Infectious Disease Consultant for Beckley Appalachian Regional Healthcare, said Alpha Gal Syndrome is spread by a specific molecule. 'It's not found in primates, like humans and chimpanzees. So, when mammals, when the tick transmits this molecule to human beings and the human beings, you know, the people eat red meat, suppose at dinner time people eat red meat, and after a few hours, they start to develop allergic reaction,' said Dr. Gul. Dr. Gul said unlike a typical food allergy, the Alpha Gal reaction can take a few hours to show symptoms. But when it does, the symptoms are similar to a normal food allergy. You will experience itching, rashes, nausea, and in severe cases, shortness of breath. Dr. Gul said the allergy does not just extend to beef, the most commonly thought of red meat, either. 'Unfortunately, people who have, who eventually develop this allergy, they are advised to completely avoid meat, red meat. From beef, you know, avoid beef, lamb, pork meat, and products actually acquired from these mammals, so like, milk.' said Dr. Gul. Dr. Gul said gelatin is another product to be avoided if the reaction is especially severe. Spotted lanternflies are in West Virginia: What to know She said prevention is the only way to avoid Alpha Gal Syndrome as currently there is no cure for this disease. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
