[GeoStL] Re: Mo. issues tick warning

  • From: Carol Shahriary <shah11@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 15:37:30 -0700 (PDT)

-
This is one of the many health-related consequences of
global warming.  I'm serious.
See
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1102-disease.html

Chicken Little was right!

Dancing Strawberry

--- k Sneed <sneed14@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>   BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!
> 
>
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/897E1D5ECEB29F23862572F20064FFC4?OpenDocument
>    Mo. issues tick warning
> 
> By Tina Hesman Saey <tsaey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
> 06/06/2007
> 
> Officials at the Missouri Department of Health and
> Senior Services are
> warning residents to be wary of ticks. A child in
> northeastern Missouri died
> May 23 of an infection with a tick-carried bacterium
> called Ehrlichia
> chaffeensis. That is one of three types of bacteria
> that cause the illness
> known as ehrlichiosis. All three types are found in
> Missouri.
> 
> So far, the health department has confirmed 16 cases
> of ehrlichiosis and is
> investigating two other cases. On average, Missouri
> has about 9 cases of the
> diseases at this point during the year.
> Cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever have more than
> doubled this year.
> State health officials have confirmed 54 cases of
> the illness this season.
> In an average year, only 22 cases would have been
> seen by this time.
> 
> Health officials have also had reports of 10 cases
> of Lyme-like disease and
> two cases of tularemia.
> 
> Symptoms of the illness usually resemble the flu
> with body aches, tiredness,
> and fever, said Joyce Berkowitz, infection control
> practitioner at SSM
> Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. Rocky Mountain
> Spotted Fever usually
> starts with a rash, but rashes appear in less than
> half of people with
> ehrlichiosis.
> 
> The hospital has seen only two possible cases of
> tick-borne illnesses this
> year.  Advertisement
> 
> 
> "We usually start seeing stuff when the kids get out
> of school and are in
> vacation mode," Berkowitz said.
> 
> Brian Allan, a biology graduate student at
> Washington University, has been
> tracking ticks for four years. It's too early in the
> season to say if the
> increase in diseases from tick bites are due to a
> larger number of ticks.
>  In Illinois, the Department of Public Health has
> had an increase in the
> number ticks reported by veterinarians, doctors and
> others, but people have
> not fallen ill at a higher rate than usual.
> 
> The increase in human illness may be due to a
> greater percentage of ticks
> carrying disease, Allan said. The infection rate is
> determined largely by
> population fluctuations in animals that serve as
> reservoirs for the
> diseases.
> 
> For instance, a large number of infected
> white-tailed deer last fall could
> lead to an increase human disease now, he said.
> White tailed deer carry
> Ehrlichia chaffeensis. So Lonestar tick larvae could
> have feasted on
> infected deer last August or September, picking up
> the infection. The ticks
> over-winter and emerge as nymphs between May and
> July.  Ticks at the
> nymph life stage are most likely to transmit disease
> to people, because
> nymphs are small and easy to miss and people often
> don't feel the
> ticks crawling on their skin, Allan said.
> 
> Nymphs take a blood meal, drop off the host and
> over-winter, emerging as
> adults the following April. Adult ticks may also
> infect people, but are more
> noticeable and account for only a small number of
> infections with tick-borne
> diseases, Allan said.
> 
> -----------
> 
> For more information:
> 
> The Missouri Department of Health and Senior
> Services
> 
>
*www.dhss.mo.gov/TicksCarryDisease/*<http://www.dhss.mo.gov/TicksCarryDisease/>
> 
> The Illinois Department of Public Health
> 
>
*www.idph.state.il.us/public/hbhome.htm*<http://www.idph.state.il.us/public/hbhome.htm>
> 
> The National Center for Infectious Diseases at the
> Centers for Disease
> Control and Prevention page on Tick-Borne Illnesses
> 
>
*www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/list_tickborne.htm*<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/list_tickborne.htm>
> 


Carol Strawberry
"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different 
speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing." (William James)
 

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