By the end of 2018 there is a chance Wellington County, Dufferin County and Guelph could be in an endemic area for Lyme disease.
In 2017 there were eight confirmed cases of humans contracting Lyme disease from blacklegged ticks within Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health’s coverage area.
“These cases they did get it here,” said Shawn Zentner, manager of health protection for the health unit. “We call that locally acquired.”
And he said in all likelihood that number will grow.
“It’s probably not unreasonable to think we’ll double it again this year,” Zentner said.
First diagnosed in Lyme, Connecticut, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection transmitted through the bite of an infected blacklegged tick.
It is only recently that blacklegged ticks have shown up in Wellington County. At the beginning of 2016 WDGPH said no blacklegged ticks had been reported within its catchment area. This year Zentner said members of the public have already brought blacklegged ticks to the health unit for testing.
“Over the last couple of years we’ve had an increase in the number of ticks reported to us and specifically blacklegged ticks, which are the ones we’re worried about,” Zentner said.
“I mean tick season starts kind of now …
“Unlike mosquitoes … there’s … a two-year life cycle of ticks so they don’t breed quite as quickly as mosquitoes do, but we have the appropriate climate and the appropriate vegetation for there to be ticks found in the area.”
In 2017 there were 234 ticks submitted to WDGPH. Of those, 91 (about 40 per cent) were blacklegged ticks and 43 were reported to be acquired within WDGPH boundaries, according to a public health report submitted by Zentner on April 4.
Including private submissions to Health Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, there were a total of 77 blacklegged ticks submitted last year from within Wellington and Dufferin. Seven per cent of the ticks tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.
With climate change Zentner said the warmer weather is beneficial to ticks.
“These things do have to over-winter,” he said. “They don’t fly.
“So the less severe the winter is, the more likely they’re going to survive and start fresh in the spring.”
The health unit will perform active surveillance this spring, which involves tick dragging.
“We go out in specific areas that have the appropriate kind of vegetation and drag for them, which really is just dragging a felt blanket around the vegetation and they hop on there,” Zentner explained. “We’ve actually never found them in active tick dragging.”
Though Wellington County is not an endemic area, except for a small area on the south end of Puslinch, Zentner said there is a possibility that could change by the end of the year.
“The risk map [Public Health Ontario] does, with the yellow blobs, they base that on active surveillance,” Zentner said. “Based on the way the map’s grown and the doubling two years in a row of the number of ticks we see here, I don’t think I’d be surprised if we got to that point in this calendar year.”
Being an endemic area means that Lyme disease is present and surveillance, like tick dragging, is no longer required.
Zentner said blacklegged ticks and the risk of contracting Lyme disease isn’t going to go away, but there are ways to stay protected.
He suggested wearing long sleeves and pants and using deet when in areas with long vegetation and grass, as well as tucking pants into socks if cycling on a rustic trail.
He also suggested performing a tick check after being outside – on all humans and animals that are in the house.
“This year we actually have about 1,000 of our tick ID cards and tick removers, which are a small device that you’d use to appropriately remove the tick from you,” Zentner said.
When public health is approached by someone who was bitten by a tick there are a number of factors contribute to the suggested course of action.
For example, where the tick was contracted, whether it’s male or female, how long it’s been attached, and if/how it has been removed.
To remove a tick use a tick remover or fine tweezers to grab the tick where it’s attached to the skin so the body isn’t squeezed.
Keep the tick by putting it in a jar with a little bit of rubbing alcohol and then take it to public health for testing.
If the person is at risk of Lyme disease, public health officials recommend seeing a physician immediately. They don’t wait for the tick test results because they take three to four months.
“A more important piece of information in terms of the human health risk is what the exposure was, where it happened and what kind of tick it is,” Zentner said.
