Diseases transmitted by ticks are very dangerous for humans. Lyme disease, tick-borne encephalitis, babesiosis are just some of the diseases that result from contact with these small arachnids. Check what other diseases can be infected by ticks.

Contents:

  1. Tick-borne diseases - types
  2. When does tick season start?
  3. Diseases transmitted by ticks - how to prevent them?
  4. Tick-borne diseases - frequency of occurrence

Tick-borne diseasesare dangerous and often difficult to recognize. Many people think that it is enough to get vaccinated and the problem is solved. Is it really enough to get vaccinated so that the tick bite is not dangerous for us?

- Talking aboutvaccine against ticksis an abuse, because the vaccine protects us only against tick-borne encephalitis, otherwise very dangerous to human he alth and life - says prof. Stanisława Tylewska-Wierzbanowska from the Independent Laboratory of Rickettsia, Chlamydia and Twigs.

- You should get vaccinated, but the vaccine itself does not exempt us from other methods of protecting ourselves against a tick bite - she adds.

In Poland, diseases transmitted by ticks include :

  • Lyme borreliosis,
  • anaplasmosis,
  • bartonellosis,
  • Q fever,
  • tularemia,
  • tick-borne encephalitis,
  • babesiosis,
  • and also rickettsials.

Tick-borne diseases - types

  • Tick-borne encephalitis

The disease may be undiagnosed in the initial period because the symptoms are not very characteristic. It is a disease of the central nervous system that can lead to serious neurological and psychological complications.

Symptoms: flu-like followed by asymptomatic disease. After this time, meningitis, encephalomyelitis and meningitis with symptoms of radiculitis may appear.

Hospitalization may take up to several months, and treatment and rehabilitation may take many years. You can get vaccinated against KZM!

Find out more: Vaccine against ticksencephalitis

  • Lyme disease

It is transmitted from small rodents, deer, roe deer, hares to ticks and further to humans. Flu-like symptoms may appear in the first stage of the disease, followed by fever, sweating, chills, heat waves, fatigue, heaviness, joint discomfort, numbness in the limbs or only fingers, muscle aches and cramps, tics in the face or other muscles, palpitations, jumping pressure, nerve paralysis, including paralysis of the facial nerve (mouth corner drooping), signs of irritation or inflammation of the meninges and peripheral nerves, and myocarditis.

  • Babesiosis

The course of the disease is similar to malaria. The disease is spread by ticks and dogs. The course of the disease caused can be severe and even fatal. Symptoms: fever, weakness.

In full-blown cases, there is intravascular haemolysis and the occurrence of cross-shaped, ring-shaped, pear-shaped or drop-shaped inclusions in the erythrocytes. Treatment consists of the administration of an anti-parasitic drug as well as quinin or clindamycin.

  • Anaplasmosis

The biological host of germs are small rodents, from which the infection is transmitted to ticks and further to humans. It is an acute fever disease, diagnosed mainly in Podlasie. Symptoms: flu-like, fever, headache, gastrointestinal bleeding, pneumonia. Treatment: doxycycline or rifampicin.

  • Bartonellosis

Germs live in the body of head and clothing lice as well as cat fleas. More infections are detected every year, which is the result of better diagnostics. these diseases mainly affect young children and the elderly who come into contact with cats. Symptoms: cat scratch disease, lymphadenitis, inflammatory eye diseases.

  • Q Fever

It is transmitted by ticks from cattle, goats, sheep, dogs and cats. The source of infection is animal excreta and secretions, internal organs, raw skin.

Symptoms: atypical pneumonia, fever, muscle aches, headache, hepatitis, endocarditis. The risk group includes cattle, sheep and goat breeders, veterinary services, slaughterhouse and tannery workers.

  • Tularemia

Transmitted by ticks from rabbits, hares, squirrels and rats. The sources of infection, apart from ticks, are animal tissues, water and dust.

Symptoms: ulcerative-nodal, nodal, oculo-nodal, pulmonary: interstitial pneumonia. The risk group includes hunters, fur breeders,tannery workers, cooks, farmers, laboratory workers and tourists.

  • Tibola

A characteristic feature of these infections is a single scab at the site of a tick bite on the scalp, accompanied by enlargement of the lymph nodes in the neck area. Fever and redness occur in about half of the patients.

Learn ways to protect against ticks

When does tick season start?

The activity of ticks begins at the turn of March and April, when they wake up from hibernation when the soil temperature reaches 5-7 degrees C and ends when the temperature drops to the above. Recently, due to global warming and snowless winters, it is more and more common to see ticks in the second half of February.

These parasites feel best on the edges of forests and meadows, glades, but they also do not disdain city parks or local lawns. They sit on the underside of leaves - mainly at their tips or on branches. The larvae are usually found in grass up to 30 cm high, nymphs on grasses and lower plants - up to 1 m, and adults - even on weeds and shrubs up to 1.2 meters high.

- Ticks do not fall from trees, they climb to a height of approx. 120 cm, because at such a height the maximum ridge of their potential host may be located - says Marta Supergan-Marwicz from the Medical University of Warsaw.

- Of course it can happen that we find a tick stuck behind the ear, but not because it fell from a tree there! Ticks roam our bodies for quite a long time, looking for a dark, secluded place with thin and delicate skin that they could stick into.

Diseases transmitted by ticks - how to prevent them?

- When going for a walk, use tick repellants - use them at home and at children. We should also adjust our clothes to the place where we are going to rest. We should wear long pants and blouses with sleeves in the forest - says Dr. Ewa Duszczyk from the Department of Infectious Diseases in Children of the Medical University of Warsaw and the Provincial Infectious Hospital. - If it turns out that we have become a victim of a tick - let's remove it as soon as possible.

How to remove a tick? Useful tools:

See the gallery of 5 photos

After coming from a forest or a meadow, or even a city park, you should carefully examine the whole body, especially the bends of the knees, the skin under the breasts, in the elbows, between the buttocks, behind the ear, groin, and shake your clothes out.

If we find a tick, remove it as soon as possible, because the sooner it is removed, the smaller it isthe likelihood of infection with tick-borne encephalitis and Lyme disease. Currently, pharmacies offer various items that make it easier for us to remove ticks from the skin, e.g. pens (about PLN 27), suction cups (about PLN 150) and even a lasso (about PLN 21) and cards for removing ticks. If we are not able to remove the tick ourselves, let's go to the emergency room.

It is worth considering vaccinating yourself and your children against tick-borne encephalitis - especially if you are going to endemic areas where there is a high incidence of tick-borne encephalitis. In Poland, such regions are the following voivodships: Podlaskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie, Opolskie and Mazowieckie.

Tick-borne diseases - frequency of occurrence

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. About 85,000 cases are registered in Europe each year. According to the data of the National Institute of Public He alth - PZH, in 2013 there were 12,779 cases of sickness in Poland and 5,348 cases in 2014 (in the same period of 2013 - 4,251 cases). In 2022, the same institute already recorded 20,000. 139 cases of Lyme disease.

The number of cases of full-blown tick-borne encephalitis in the last 10 years in Poland was estimated at 150 to over 250 cases per year. In 2014, there were 195 cases, and in 2015 - 150 cases of tick-borne encephalitis. Epidemiological studies show that these data are underestimated. The greatest number of cases is recorded in the regions of north-eastern Poland, in the Podlaskie Voivodeship, especially in the areas bordering Lithuania (up to 80% of reported infections in a given year), and in the Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship and the eastern part of Mazowieckie Voivodeship.

In 2022 and 2022, 476 and 450 cases were recorded, respectively, according to the data of the National Institute of Public He alth - PZH. Researchers agree that these numbers are underestimated. Climate warming contributes to the expansion of ticks to areas that have not been endemic so far. The reason for the increased morbidity, apart from climate change, is also travel to the endemic areas of TBE.

Over 10,000 cases are registered annually in Europe. In all countries with registration of TBE, there has been an increase in the number of cases lasting about 20 years.

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  • Home remedies for ticks
  • How to protect yourself from ticks? Effective ways

Category:

Parasitic diseases