![]() ![]() And back on that Muir Beach trail in California, Salkeld's team got its second surprise when they tested the ticks they found. In East Hampton, New York, Dempsey is seeing more Lone Star ticks, a relative newcomer to the area, and fewer black-legged ticks - resulting in less Lyme disease. Regional differences are shifting as well. "It's prime time - ticks are already out and about in Minnesota," says Elizabeth Schiffman, epidemiologist supervisor at the Minnesota Department of Health. "Every year they say it's going to be a big year - either because of acorns or cold winters or warm winters." he says, but all of those factors vary from one location to the next.Ĭurrently, a mild winter plus a hot, humid summer in the Midwest is bringing out ticks earlier than usual, for example. That's why he's skeptical when he hears predictions for upcoming tick seasons. George Dempsey of East Hampton Family Medicine and Bay Area Lyme Foundation's National Lyme Biobank. Tick prevalence hinges on a number of local factors that make sweeping generalizations tricky, says Dr. ![]() Your personal disease risk is highly dependent on your location. Here's what you need to know about what kinds of ticks to watch out for, where - and what to do if you get bitten. Anaplasmosis is the second-most common tick-borne disease, with nearly 8,000 cases reported in 2019. In rare cases, tick-borne diseases are fatal. While Lyme disease is by far the most prevalent, accounting for nearly 35,000 cases in 2019, ticks also carry pathogens that can make you allergic to red meat or cause acute respiratory distress. It all adds up to more illness: tick-borne diseases are at an all-time high, with about 50,000 cases reported each year - and far more going unreported. Pritt's lab tests tens of thousands of ticks over the last three years, they've found that more and more of the ticks carry the bacteria that causes anaplasmosis, a disease that can cause headache, fever and chills and severe illness if treatment is delayed. The sheer number of ticks may be forcing them to branch out into new habitats, Mayo Clinic parasitologist Bobbi Pritt theorizes.Īnd, more of them appear to be carrying pathogens. That trend has continued, with ticks are showing up in places previously deemed safe from the disease-carrying arachnids, from those coastal California beach areas to manicured lawns in the Northeast. Now, "as the numbers expand, we see ticks in areas that we don't think of as traditional habitat," Pritt says.
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