From news out of Washington to
what's happening in your own
backyard.
It's tick season, and it started
early this year.
Also, health officials are keeping
an eye on dangerous and not
well-known tick-borne diseases.
We turn to the Department of Health
Services and public health
entomologist, Zia Lee.
Dr. Lee, thanks very much for being
here.
Thank you for having me on the show.
So even though spring has really
just sprung, our tick's
already out in some fours.
Yeah, although it feels like spring
just started for us, the ticks have
been out since middle of March.
And we do a lot of work around the
state and what we see is that they
are out and they are abundant in
some locations. They are numerous.
Is this a harbinger that the tick
season will be bad this year?
Sometimes we do see that, but we
do have a lot of work and
surveillance that we do across the
state of Wisconsin.
And what we're seeing right now are
tick numbers that are fairly similar
to what we normally see in an
average year.
And considering the forecast for
the summer, I think we're expecting
a fairly average and normal year for
tick season.
How does Wisconsin compare to other
states when it comes to number
of ticks that we encounter?
Yeah, so Wisconsin is considered one
of the top, you know, 10
states with the highest
rates of
tick borne diseases.
And so we do have quite a number of
ticks in Wisconsin.
There are other states that have a
lot more, but I think we are
definitely up there in terms of the,
you know, the top five, top 10.
Now three types of ticks inhabit
Wisconsin, I understand, but nearly
all illnesses spread by
ticks are caused by the deer tick,
according to DHS.
One such illness we know about is
Lyme disease, really well known.
How common is that?
Yeah, so Lyme disease is
one of the most commonly
reported vector-borne disease in
the United States. In fact, it is
the most common vector-bore
reported vector borne disease
in United States Now when we think
about how common it is, we often
think about how common is in
the ticks that we find out in
the environment.
And so this time of the year, when
the ticks are active, we normally
see the adult ticks
and a lot of the research and
studies that have been conducted.
In those ticks are in the
environment when you collect them
and you test them for the pathogen
that caused Lyme disease, we
see about 40 to 50 percent of those
adult ticks have
that pathogen.
And now when we get into the summer
months, that shifts
a little bit, and we get the
juvenile life stages that become
active.
And in that life stage, we typically
see about 15 to 20 percent of
the ticks being infected with
that that can cause Lyme disease.
So that's bad enough, but there are
these other illnesses, including
something called alpha-gal syndrome
and Powassan,
the latter of which is more common
in northern Wisconsin, I understand.
What is Powassin and how
dangerous is it?
Yeah, so Palsymovirus disease
is a disease that can be transmitted
by, again, the black-legged tick or
the deer tick.
And it can be very fatal in
some cases.
There are some cases where people
can develop severe symptoms, such
as encephalitis, and in
rare cases, people can die from this
as well.
But for the most part, when we think
about how common or how uncommon
this pathogen is,
the environment.
Again, we go back to sort of
thinking about how common this
pathogen is in the ticks that could
potentially bite us.
And so when we think about that and
we do the testing and look at the
studies that have sort of, you know,
pull the ticks from the environment
testing for this pathogen, what we
see is that the number of ticks that
are infected with this pathogen
that, um, is about
1% or less than that.
So it's fairly uncommon in the takes
that are in the environment, and
it's
We just don't see a lot of it in the
environment.
And what about alpha-gal
syndrome?
How common is that and what is it?
Yeah, so alpha-gal syndrome is
a hypersensitivity
to red meat.
It's an allergic reaction to
red meet.
And this is caused by a bite from
a Lone Star tick.
Now in Wisconsin, we don't have a
lot of Lone Start tick.
In fact, we do have it labeled as
a tick that is commonly found.
It's not native to Wisconsin.
It's invading from the southern
parts of the United States.
We do get reported cases of.
Alpha Gal from across the state,
and we do get reported ticks
from across Wisconsin
as well, but none of that suggests
that the tick is firmly here in
Wisconsin. You know, that tick may
have come in through an
animal such as a bird
or a traveler or something like
that, like a deer, but for the most
part, it's not, the tick is not here
in the Wisconsin, and so we don't
expect a lot of cases of Alpha Gal
syndrome in Wisconsin, but we do
like, you know, like the data shows,
we do see Pop up once and
again because of the fact that the
long star tick can be found randomly
throughout the state either through
other animals that brought it in or
through other other avenues.
Good to know that those last two
kind of tick-borne
diseases are rare, but what
should people do to best
prevent tick bites?
Yeah, so tick bites are entirely
preventable.
You want to make sure that people
have the best health outcome.
And some of the easiest things that
you can do that are cost effective
is just check yourself for
tick. You go outside, you go into
the woods, you go on a hike.
Just remind yourself to stop every
15 minutes and check yourself for
ticks. When you're done with that
and you come out of the woods, check
yourself or ticks.
When you get home, an easy thing to
do is just to take off any of the
clothes that you had on and throw
that into your dryer, run it on
high for about 10, 15 minutes.
And that should create enough heat
to kill any ticks that were on your
clothes.
Take a shower and of course, do a
thorough tick check before you take
a shower. Taking a shower can help
to remove any ticks that have
not been attached to you.
And of course, one other thing that
you can do while you're out there is
to use bug spray.
If you use bugspray and target
yourself in the regions where the
tick might grab onto you, it's a
good way to just repel them and keep
them off of you and keep you safe.
All right, Dr. Zia Lee,
thank you very much for your
information.
For more on this and other issues
facing Wisconsin, visit our website
at pbswisconsin.org and
then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Freiberg.
Have a good weekend.
Yeah, so I really like.
Insects and I really like helping
people too.