In this article, “New York State Department of Health officials say while there is a risk to exposure of multiple tick-borne illnesses resulting from a single bite, it is still extremely rare for an individual to contract more than one disease.”
If you have the experience of contracting multiple tick-borne infections in NYS, please share your story in the comments section of this article.
My comment: “In my neighborhood on the NY/MA border, it is common for Lyme patients to have one or more tick-borne coinfections in addition to Lyme. One tick-borne illness that has become especially common in my neighborhood in recent years is Babesia duncani. Knowing this, I was surprised to see that Dr. Cary did not include Babesia duncani in his recently published study on multiple infections in ticks. If he had included this species and several other tick-borne pathogens, then I am sure that the number of multiply-infected ticks would have been even higher.”
“This trend is especially concerning to me because the NYS DOH has been instrumental in refusing to license many of the cutting-edge and even gold-standard tests for these increasingly common tick-borne coinfections, leaving many New Yorkers with chronic debilitating infections and no diagnosis. Thankfully my family members were able to go to neighboring states to get properly tested, diagnosed, and treated for the multiple tick-borne coinfections that were making us sick. In June after hearing similar stories from thousands of patients across NYS, the NYS Senate Lyme Disease Task Force directed the NYS Department of Health to reevaluate its recommendations and licensing procedures for tick-born illnesses in order to facilitate better diagnosis.”
KarlaL
Scientists Track Ticks as They Move North Jenna Flanagan | August 20, 2014 11:10 AM
In May, Albany Public Television’s Innovation Trail reporter Jenna Flanagan investigated the lesser known health threats transmitted by the common deer tick. Flanagan joins Jack Ford on MetroFocus to update the findings.
“What they found at the Cary Institute [of Ecosystem Studies] is that while Lyme disease is usually found along coastal areas, say the mid-Hudson valley, definitely Long Island, and parts of the Jersey shore, people are now reporting tick bites further and further north into the Capital region, and even some people in the Adirondacks,” she said.
According to Flanagan, it is not clear why the bites are being reported so far north but there is speculation that warming temperatures are encouraging the white footed mouse to move north and they are either carrying ticks with them or infecting new ones. . . .