{"id":176679,"date":"2021-08-31T08:27:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T12:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=176679"},"modified":"2021-08-31T08:27:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T12:27:31","slug":"tick-borne-illness-still-rare-despite-greater-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/08\/tick-borne-illness-still-rare-despite-greater-population\/","title":{"rendered":"Tick-Borne Illness Still Rare Despite Greater Population"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a busy summer for ticks, with three invasive species thriving in Connecticut. And while it\u2019s mathematically sound to conclude more ticks means more risk for tick-borne illness, the path to pathogen transmission may not be as defined as generally perceived.<\/p>\n

\n

About 30% to 40% of the deer ticks tested in Connecticut are positive for a pathogen; however, the rate of clinical infection from a tick bite is usually in the low single digits, maybe 1% to 3% in a given season. — Dr. Henry Feder Jr.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Henry Feder Jr.<\/a>, professor of family medicine in the UConn School of Medicine, who has been studying tick-borne illnesses for decades, offers the reminder that a lot needs to happen for a tick to cause a health problem worthy of serious worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of ticks carry disease, but positive cases in humans (per tick bite) end up being statistically rare,\u201d Feder says. \u201cI liken it to a mosquito bite. It\u2019s not without risk, but the risk is very low. And in general, the illnesses, when they do occur, are very treatable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every year the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station is actively trapping and testing ticks for pathogens. While the information this yields can be very interesting from an epidemiological perspective \u2014 that is, helping paint a broad picture of general tick activity and trends, providing a sense of what illnesses they carry and where \u2014 it is usually of little clinical value to an individual person with a tick bite, and can end up causing confusion or undue worry.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Henry Feder Jr., professor of family medicine and pediatrics at UConn Health (file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe deer tick, for example, can carry Lyme disease, anaplasia, or babesia,\u201d Feder says. \u201cA prophylactic double dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of finding an engorged deer tick is effective for preventing Lyme disease. Doxycycline prophylaxis is preferred to waiting until the tick is tested, because by the time you get the results of the tick testing, you\u2019re usually outside of the 72-hour window.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anaplasmosis and babesiosis are much less common than Lyme disease, and prophylaxis for these infections has not been studied, Feder says. \u201cAbout 30% to 40% of the deer ticks tested in Connecticut are positive for a pathogen; however, the rate of clinical infection from a tick bite is usually in the low single digits, maybe 1% to 3% in a given season. For example, in a tick bite prophylaxis study done in Connecticut, about 200 subjects received placebo and two in 200 developed Lyme disease. Those two subjects were successfully treated with doxycycline.\u201d<\/p>\n

More importantly, Feder says, is\u00a0 that even if the tick ends up testing positive, it\u2019s not a direct line to human infection. Going back to the Lyme example, in order to have any significant chance to pass Lyme disease to a human, first it has to be carrying Lyme disease, and even it is, it would have to feed for at least 36 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually better to find the tick while it\u2019s on you than it is the find the tick bite later, because that mean\u2019s it\u2019s not done feeding,\u201d Feder says. \u201cIf it\u2019s not engorged, it can\u2019t pass it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state scientists have reported higher than normal tick activity this summer, which means they\u2019re trapping and testing more ticks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have more ticks, therefore more illness, but in almost all cases, we\u2019re talking about very treatable illnesses,\u201d Feder says.<\/p>\n

Ticks are most active feeders in the spring and early summer. Using an insect repellent consisting of 20 to 30 percent of the active ingredient DEET remains the most reliable way to avoid tick bites. One application repels ticks and other pests for hours.<\/p>\n

Beyond Lyme Disease<\/h3>\n

The dog tick can carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is very, very rare in Connecticut and treatable with doxycycline. The dog tick is easily found as it is easily seen, versus the deer tick, which about the size of a poppy seed.<\/p>\n

Babesiosis is also rare, mostly because healthy immune systems usually defeat it before it causes clinical disease. Those at risk for clinical babesia infections include people who are without a spleen, those who immunocompromised, pregnant, or those who are very old.<\/p>\n

The lone star tick, which historically makes up less than 1% of Connecticut\u2019s tick population but this summer represents 4% of the ticks collected, can carry ehrlichiosis, which also is characterized by rash and flu-like symptoms.<\/p>\n

A relative newcomer is the Asian long-horned tick, which has not been shown to spread illness in Connecticut, although it has in Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Connecticut is seeing more ticks this summer, Dr. Henry Feder Jr. at UConn Health explains how pathogen transmission is still the path less traveled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":151159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,1868,2235,179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-176679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-meds","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-17 15:48:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176679"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176698,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176679\/revisions\/176698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/151159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176679"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=176679"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=176679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}