State experts are warning that there are unusually high numbers of disease-carrying ticks around Connecticut now and that a large percentage of them are capable of transmitting Lyme disease, increasing the risks for contracting the illness.
“We’re finding high levels of ticks infected with human pathogens,” Theodore G. Andreadis, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, said Monday.
The director of the CAES tick testing program, Goudarz Molaei, said about 40 percent of the more than 2,600 ticks checked so far this season are carrying the Lyme disease spirochetes. “This is roughly 10 percent higher than what we have typically seen over the last five years,” Molaei said.
The testing program is also finding high numbers of ticks that are also carrying other dangerous diseases, including babesiosis and granulocytic anaplasmosis, officials said.
“We are in the midst of a peak activity for nymphal stages of blacklegged deer ticks … that are often difficult to detect because of their small size and propensity to quickly attach and feed,” Andreadis said. “We’re at the height of the season.”
Andreadis is urging Connecticut residents to be extremely careful about checking themselves and their children if they go out into the woods or just around their yards.
“Ticks are pretty much everywhere,” Andreadis warned. “There’s virtually no wooded area in the state you can venture into that doesn’t have these ticks.” He said anyone walking through wooded or brushy areas should use tick repellents and/or wear tick-repellent clothing.
There were 2,022 cases of Lyme disease reported in Connecticut in 2017, according to the state Department of Public Health. But experts believe that the disease has become so common that many doctors and health facilities are not bothering to report all cases. By some estimates, more than 20,000 people in Connecticut were actually infected with the disease last year.
“In Connecticut, June and July are the peak months for Lyme disease,” Christopher Stan, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health said. “Because of reporting delays, our Lyme disease surveillance system does not provide real-time information on the occurrence of Lyme disease.”
Lyme disease is now the most commonly reported “vector-borne disease,” in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A vector-borne illness is one that is transmitted to humans by ticks, mosquitoes or other insects or animals.
CDC scientists believe nearly 300,000 people a year are now infected with Lyme disease. “This is part of a national trend that we’re seeing here,” Andreadis said of the rising number of tick-borne diseases in Connecticut.
Federal experts also warned that the number of people in this country infected with diseases transmitted by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas has more than tripled in recent years. Some scientists suggest that the increase may be due to increasingly warm weather across the U.S. connected to climate change.
Andreadis said that the rate of Lyme disease infection in deer ticks in Connecticut between 2013 and 2017 ranged from a low of 27 percent to as high as 32 percent. He said this season’s 40 percent infection rate “is about the highest we’ve seen.”
Connecticut’s tick experts are also worried that other tick-borne diseases may be out there that aren’t being tested for under this state’s existing tick program.
Andreadis said one tick-borne disease of special concern is the Powassan virus, which is also spread by deer ticks. Two men died on Cape Cod in 2017 from the disease. Connecticut’s first Powassan case was also recorded last year, but the baby from a Griswold family survived.
Connecticut officials have applied for a CDC grant to expand this state’s testing program to include the Powassan virus and other tick-borne diseases. “It’s a pretty nasty disease,” Andreadis said.
