Climate Change Helped Lyme Disease Invade The U.S.: Cases Have Exploded Since The 1990s
REVIEW, 2018. 'How Climate Change Helped Lyme Disease Invade America.' Cases of the tick-borne illness have exploded since the 1990s. Vox, June 15, *2018. (Lyme Cases Have Also Been Reported In The UK, SEE Below). Excerpts:
..New York state is an epicenter for Lyme. More than 90 percent of cases pop up in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and mid-Atlantic. And it’s why New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has been calling on the federal government to more aggressively tackle Lyme. But Trump’s policies on climate change, Walter said, will likely do the opposite, and make climate-sensitive infectious diseases like Lyme even more common. Here are four things to know as we enter the season for the disease.
1) Lyme disease spreads to people through tick bites — but the disease can be really hard to diagnose: Lyme is the most common vector-borne disease in the US, more common West Nile or the Zika virus. But unlike Zika, which is transmitted from mosquitoes to humans, Lyme reaches people through tick bites after circulating through a chain of other species.
The bacteria typically live in mice, chipmunks, birds, and deer in wooded areas. And these are all animals that ticks feast on.
Ticks like humans too. They’re attracted to the warmth and carbon dioxide we give off. Though they can’t jump or fly, they typically crawl onto us when we brush against them while outdoors — walking through tall grass, playing in fields.
If they’re carrying the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, they can infect us when they bite. (The precise amount of time a tick needs to be attached to the skin to transmit Lyme isn’t known — though many claim it takes 24 to 36 hours. What is clear: The risk of infection increases the longer a tick is attached.)
- (4 mins). Lyme Disease is spreading. Blame ticks-- and climate change.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, common Lyme symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, and muscle and joint aches. There’s also that telltale skin rash, which manifests in a ring-shape on the body — but not everybody who has Lyme gets a rash or even the bullseye on their body (and Lyme-related rashes can also come in many shapes and sizes). If Lyme is diagnosed early enough, an antibiotic can treat the illness. But when it’s left untreated, the bacterial infection can spread into the joints, heart, and nervous system — causing more severe and dangerous symptoms like arthritis, heart palpitations, brain inflammation, and nerve pain. In some patients, even those who have been treated for Lyme, symptoms can persist for months and researchers don’t understand why. (Doctors call this “post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome” — but it’s controversial.)
To make matters more complicated, Lyme can be really difficult to diagnose. Many people never get a rash, and can’t recall a tick bite. The FDA-approved blood tests on offer in the US aren’t always accurate. So doctors are often left diagnosing the disease on the basis of clinical symptoms that can be really vague. “It’s one of these diseases that has a very nonspecific, acute presentation,” said Duane Gubler, an infectious diseases specialist and former director of the division of vector-borne disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There are many people out there with symptoms of chronic fatigue, muscle pain, and Lyme disease has become one of the catchalls for people who have an illness of unknown etiology and there’s simply no clinical or lab test that can diagnose these people.”..
2) Lyme disease has become increasingly common: In the US, the incidence of Lyme disease has doubled since 1991, from about four cases per 100,000 people to eight per 100,000 people. About 30,000 people are known to get sick with the disease each year, and the CDC thinks the real number of cases is about 10 times that. It’s also spread to a wider area of the country. The risk for the disease is concentrated in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, and upper Midwest — with some pockets of Lyme cases on the West Coast..
-> 3) A driver of the uptick in Lyme incidence: global warming: The Environmental Protection Agency tracks the number of Lyme cases, along with heat-related deaths and severe weather events, as an indicator of global warming. That’s because researchers think climate change is another driver of the trend — and they expect the situation to get much worse during the 21st century. One of the most important determinants of where ticks can live is temperature. In warm seasons, ticks seek out new hosts to feast on. And warm seasons that last longer in broader parts of the country mean ticks are active for longer periods each year, and can live further and further north...
Read More, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/6/6/15728498/lyme-disease-symptoms-rash-ticks-global-warming
*Brain Illness Spread By Ticks Has Reached UK: BBC News, Oct. 29, 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-50206382
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