CDC statistics revealed that Vermont is second place among states with highest rate of the most common tick-borne disease called ‘lyme disease’.
Based on the numbers gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011, about eight percent of those infected were from Vermont. Delaware had the most while New Hampshire was next to Vermont. The southeast side of the state was more infected than the northeast.
Henry Chen, commissioner of the Vermont Health Department was alarmed with the results since women and children are very prone to the disease. Those who live near woods and grasses are also vulnerable because ticks inhabit in these places.
To combat the disease, the health department is preparing to launch a Lyme education and awareness campaign to the locals. It will also be included in the curriculum of high school students to better prepare them in case they catch the disease and so as to prevent them from acquiring it.
So why there are ticks attacks? lan Giese, an ecologist and professor of biology at Lyndon State College, studied the tick population and distribution in Vermont. His team collected different samples near the Connecticut River where ticks reportedly inhabited. They concluded that several factors may have contributed on the expansion of the tick population and some of them are climate change, reforestation, fragmentation, and city development. However, he will still need to further analyze how climate change had become a factor.
“Of those factors, the possibility that climate change is one of them is most intriguing to me,” Giese said in Burlington Press. “Evidence to suggest this includes population growth and habitat increase of ticks in this country and in Europe, where ticks are climbing to higher elevations.”
“That suggests a global cause — that’s why it’s intriguing to me,” Giese said. “I’m reluctant to say climate change is causing it. But it’s certainly what piques my interest and causes me to collect the data.”
Blacklegged ticks were the source of the infection attributed to Lyme disease. Those who got infected may suffer from fever, fatigue, and rashes. The good news is that it can be cured with antibiotics.
