Jul-2015 How ticks that carry Lyme disease are spreading to

If a tick is attached to your skin for less than 24 hours, your chance of getting Lyme disease is small. One focus has been to figure out how the body’s immune system is triggered when confronted with the Lyme disease bacteria, says Mark Soloski, an immunologist who is co-director for basic research at the Lyme Disease Clinical Research Center. Scientists realized that the black-legged clicks are heading northward.

Lyme disease has become a major problem in the area because of the increasing deer population, researchers say. Also, the advance of Lyme disorder situations is because of the indisputable fact that the clicks are heading around regions that are until now 100% free…

Disease-ridden ticks have infested the seaside towns of Marshfield, Hingham, Scituate, Plymouth and Duxbury, as well as the inland communities of Middleboro, Brockton and Taunton, according to the number of cases of Lyme disease reported to the Department of Public Health.

Every day for the past few weeks John Aucott has diagnosed at least one new patient with Lyme disease.

In order to understand how the ticks migrate, the researchers used phylogeographic and genetic analysis.

“The fine temporal and spatial scale of the samples analyzed allowed for precise estimates of the rate, timing, and direction of individual migratory events”, said Dr. Camilo Khatchikian, lead author of the Evolution study. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in diagnoses.

“As long as you’re doing good tick control, having a positive patient doesn’t necessarily mean that other animals or other people in the household are at risk for exposure”. “From the point of view of human disease, it doesn’t really matter where they come from; the point is that they’re here”.

The American Dog tick was once thought to be the region’s most abundant tick, but the deer tick population has increased recently, and can be threatening to both pets and their owners.

It turns out the Cranston father of three has Lyme disease. “But when you start thinking about how to control and prevent infections, it matters to know how easily the vectors of the disease are moving”. It is possible that the ticks are adapting to new local environments, or that changes in land use and climate are making the new environments more suitable for them.