>> Professor Mike Wagner, thanks very much.
>> Thank you. >> 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 Xia Lee. And doctor Lee, thanks
very much for being here. >> Thank you for having me on
the show. >> So even though spring has
really just sprung, our ticks are already out in some force.
>> Yeah. Although it feels like it's 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.
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 this summer, I think we're expecting a fairly
average and normal year for tick season.
compare to other states when it comes to number of ticks that we
encounter? >> Yeah. So Wisconsin is
considered one of the top ten 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 ten. >> 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 borne
reported reported vector borne disease in the United States.
Now, when we think about how common it is, we often think
about how common it 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 causes Lyme disease. We see about 40 to
50% 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% of those ticks being
infected with that pathogen. 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 what is Powassan and how dangerous is it?
>> Yeah. So Powassan virus disease is a disease that can be
transmitted by, again, the blacklegged tick or the deer
tick, and it can be very fatal in some cases. You know, there
are some cases where people can develop severe symptoms such as
encephalitis. And then in rare cases, people can die from this
as well. But for the most part, when we think about how common
or uncommon this pathogen is in the in 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 we look at the
studies that have sort of, you know, pull the ticks from the
environment, test them for this pathogen, what we see is that
the number of ticks that are infected with this pathogen,
less than that. So it's fairly uncommon in the ticks that are
in the environment. And it's fairly uncommon in the sense
that we just don't see a lot of it in the environment.
>> What should people do to best prevent tick bites?
>> Yeah. So tick bites are entirely preventable. Some of
the easiest things that you can do that are cost effective is
just check your check yourself for ticks. 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 for
ticks when you get home. An easy thing to do is to take off any
of the clothes that you had on and throw that into your dryer.
Run it on high for about ten 15 minutes and that should create
enough heat to kill any takes 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. You know, if you use bug spray 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.