{"id":60223,"date":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-entomologist-says-deer-tick-numbers-up-significantly-increasing-risk-of-contracting-lyme-disease\/"},"modified":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","slug":"uri-entomologist-says-deer-tick-numbers-up-significantly-increasing-risk-of-contracting-lyme-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/07\/uri-entomologist-says-deer-tick-numbers-up-significantly-increasing-risk-of-contracting-lyme-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 entomologist says deer tick numbers up significantly, increasing risk of contracting Lyme disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 6, 2012 \u2013 Now that the peak of summer outdoor activities are starting, a 溏心vlog免费B站 entomologist warns that deer tick numbers in Rhode Island are up 80 percent over 2011 levels and 142 percent above the previous 5-year average, meaning that the risk of contracting Lyme disease or other tick-borne diseases is especially high.<\/p>\n


\n\tThomas Mather, director of the 溏心vlog免费B站 Center for Vector-Borne Disease and the TickEncounter Resource Center<\/a>, reports that his tick surveillance team has completed the first round of tick sampling at all 60 of the sites monitored for the past 18 years, and he is alarmed at this year\u2019s increases. <\/p>\n


\nFor example, at one site in East Greenwich where sample counts are typically 14-20 nymphal deer ticks in 90 samples, this year the team collected 187 ticks. Sites in Bristol, Tiverton and Johnston, among other places, also saw triple digit percentage increases compared to last year. A second round of surveillance has already begun, and so far, the counts are coming in higher than in round one.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cTick abundance is really high this year, and that means that people need to get TickSmart,\u201d said Mather, referring to TickEncounter\u2019s newest public education and call to action campaign for Rhode Island. \u201cSo many people either believe they already know the best way to prevent tick bites, or they don\u2019t believe ticks will bite them. The tick bite protection practices used by most folks are just not appropriate or enough for preventing bites from nymphal stage deer ticks. \u201c<\/p>\n


\nMather said that unlike other models used to predict tick encounter and Lyme disease risk, his research has shown that nymphal deer tick abundance and disease rates are determined by relative humidity levels in June. Higher humidity means greater tick survival, more tick encounters and more disease. Episodes of low humidity, even as brief as 8-10 hours, causes nymphal deer ticks to dry out and die earlier in the tick season.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve had perfect tick weather during May and June, which means that few ticks were killed off, and that\u2019s keeping the numbers high throughout the region for now,\u201d said Mather, who also serves as a member of Governor Patrick\u2019s Commission on Lyme Disease in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n


\n \tTo be TickSmart, Mather says residents and visitors need to pay closer attention to the type of tick they come in contact with. \u201cNot every type of tick will make you sick,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now people are encountering tiny poppy seed-sized deer ticks that will make you sick and large American dog ticks that rarely transmit disease in Rhode Island. In the fall, the larger ticks people and pets encounter are adult deer ticks, not dog ticks, so disease risk is high then, too.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOther TickSmart tips include doing daily tick checks, \u201cespecially at bath time when you\u2019re already naked,\u201d he said, and always wearing tick repellent. Mather advises that it\u2019s important to know what to look for in your daily tick check, and the most likely places to look — ticks the size of poppy seeds biting below the belt.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWearing the best tick repellent is as easy as getting dressed in the morning,\u201d Mather said, referring to clothing treated with a repellent containing Permethrin.<\/p>\n


\nThe TickEncounter website, www.tickencounter.org<\/a>, has rapidly become one of the nation\u2019s premier tick bite protection resources and provides a growing catalog of TickSmart tools, including a popular, interactive tick identification chart, shower cards for prompting daily tick checks, tick encounter risk maps, and many other TickSmart strategies for protecting yourself, your pets and your yard from ticks.<\/p>\n


\n\tMather will participate in a press conference with Senator Jack Reed and Lyme disease officials from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the Rhode Island Department of Health on Monday, July 9 at 11:00 at the Department of Health auditorium in Providence. At the event, Reed will call for a national strategy to combat the disease and expand federal research efforts to increase surveillance and prevention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 July 6, 2012 \u2013 Now that the peak of summer outdoor activities are starting, a 溏心vlog免费B站 entomologist warns that deer tick numbers in Rhode Island are up 80 percent over 2011 levels and 142 percent above the previous 5-year average, meaning that the risk of contracting Lyme disease or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}