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Tick dangers touted in R.I. URI hosts an awareness day By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 3, 2007
WARWICK, R.I. -- Standing near a giant inflatable yellow tick yesterday, University of Rhode Island researcher Nate Miller surveyed a patch of woods at Goddard Memorial State Park.
He kicked up leaves that ticks hide under. He explained that ticks don't drop from trees. And, to about 50 people gathered for the country's only official Tick Control Awareness Day, he drew a chorus of "yucks" as he described the tick's life cycle and agility in attaching to people, gorging on their blood and transmitting Lyme and other diseases to them.
"When I go to a picnic, everyone is so happy saying, 'Isn't this great, it's so beautiful outside,' " Miller said. "But I look around and I see where ticks could be hiding."
URI organizers used the day to highlight what they describe as a growing epidemic of tick-borne diseases in Rhode Island and throughout New England, one that is causing tens of millions of dollars each year in health costs. But the day also underscored the difficulty of making the public aware of the dangers of ticks.
Unlike mosquitoes, which people can often hear and feel, ticks attack silently, often attaching themselves to humans with little notice until someone becomes sick.
Ticks are dramatically expanding their range and abundance throughout New England. Scientists aren't sure exactly why, but suspect it could be a combination of factors from natural expansion, the movement of deer that carry ticks into new areas, and even climate change.
Reports of tick-borne diseases are also rising in the region. In 2005, the last year statistics are available, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 5,000 cases of Lyme disease in New England. But Thomas Mather, director of the University of Rhode Island Center for Vector-Borne Diseases, who is behind the awareness campaign, said he suspects the number is far greater because the disease is hard to diagnose and some states, like Rhode Island, have changed reporting guidelines.
Early-stage Lyme disease symptoms include fevers, chills, and sore joints and lymph nodes. A rash, much like a bull's eye with the bite in the middle, can appear five days to a month after a bite. If untreated, arthritis, facial paralysis, heart problems, and meningitis can occur.
Other tick-borne diseases include babesiosis, a malaria-like infection that can be fatal and was first diagnosed on Nantucket in the 1970s, and anaplasmosis, which can cause fever, chills, and a range of other symptoms.
"It looked like I had chicken pox all over my legs and arms . . . and it itched so much," said Erin Chaleski, 43, of East Greenwich, R.I. Chaleski was attending yesterday's event with her friend, Cathy Gagnon, 38, of Norwich, Conn., who still has facial paralysis from a bout with Lyme disease six years ago. Gagnon was hoping to learn more about treatment for her paralysis.
"It changes your life, because it changes your look," Gagnon said. "I didn't know I was bitten by a tick. People really need to be aware."
Ticks that transmit diseases to humans tend to live under leaves where it is humid. One adult female tick can lay as many as 1,500 eggs. The larvae are usually infected with Lyme disease after sucking the blood of infected white-footed mice or chipmunks. Those infected ticks drop off the animals and during their next life stage, as nymphs, reattach themselves to deer that can carry them to new places, other animals, or humans. In its two-year life cycle, a tick will need a blood meal three times.
As nymphs, about one in five ticks are infected with Lyme disease. That percentage rises to one in two adult ticks. Nymphs can transmit disease to humans in as little as eight hours, while adults usually take at least 24 hours.
Yesterday, the tick control patrol, as the URI team is called, offered a suite of tips: Avoid using traditional bug spray because it merely repels ticks.
Permethrin, another chemical that is sprayed or soaked into clothing, is a more potent tick killer.
Treat pets with the chemical so they don't transmit ticks to people.
Mather and his URI team are filming a documentary about tick awareness. They started a website called tickencounter.org. The team is joining CVS stores, to start carrying tick-removal tweezers at counters in New England states. A portion of the sales will go toward tick prevention.
"Ticks don't have a calling card," Mather said. "They are stealthy little critters."
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
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