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- Tick Disease
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- Tick Bite Disease
A common summer disaster - mite, not only creates inconvenience for walking in the forest and the river, but can also bring much more serious problems. In addition to tick-borne tick-borne encephalitis and borreliosis that scares everyone, there is a whole list of tick-borne diseases.
What diseases do ticks carry?
All tick-borne infections are obligate-transmitted diseases. That is, diseases that can be transmitted from animal to human.
Tick-borne infections include:
- encephalitis;
- borreliosis;
- tularemia;
- typhus;
- spotted fever;
- Q fever;
- hemorrhagic fever;
- anaplasmosis;
- ehrlichiosis;
- babesiosis.
These diseases from ticks in humans occur after an arthropod bite. But the disease itself from a bite does not arise. The aggressor needs to be a carrier of the causative agent of the disease. In areas free of epidemiological conditions, the likelihood of contracting something unpleasant after tick bite small. If there is an epidemiological danger in the area, then the risk of meeting an infected tick is very high. In taiga areas that are dysfunctional in encephalitis, every fifth tick is a distributor of this disease.
Important!
There is a very dangerous misconception that the likelihood of a disease resulting from a tick bite is less, the faster the parasite has been removed from the body. In fact, the probability of infection is far from zero even in the first moments after a skin puncture. The tick itself also does not set a timer. Since there is no pain during a tick bite, it cannot be said how much time the bloodsucker spent eating blood.
To reduce the likelihood of illness after a tick bite, it is necessary to use preventive measures and know the symptoms of the onset of the disease.
Encephalitis
There is an opinion that only the “special” suffers this disease Tick-borne Encephalitis. Not. This disease is transmitted by any blood-sucking parasite. Which means any kind ixodid ticksthat can be found in the forest and in the meadows.
Encephalitis tick infects a person at the time of a bite. First few days last incubation period, and the person feels healthy. Then, depending on the type of encephalitis, symptoms appear that are similar to other, less dangerous diseases.
Symptoms of European tick-borne encephalitis:
- the first stage: muscle and headache, nausea and vomiting, anorexia, fever;
- remission;
- second stage: damage to the central nervous system with the development of meningitis or encephalitis.
On a note!
Far Eastern encephalitis is much more severe: temperature 38-39 ° C, nausea, severe headache, sleep disturbance, after 3-5 days - damage to the central nervous system.
Given the danger of disease, many are interested in the question of whether tick-borne encephalitis is transmitted from person to person. With simple patient care, no. To do this, you need a vector. But to find an infected tick that, at the stage of a larva or nymph, would drink blood from a person with a human encephalitis and “plant” it on itself, one can only consciously. Such an event requires lengthy preparation. It's easier to just walk into the forest.
Borreliosis, aka Lyme disease
The most common tick-borne disease in Europe and the USA.The incubation period from tick infection to the appearance of the first signs of 1-2 weeks. Cause of infection are not adults, but nymphs, so the peak incidence of borreliosis occurs in May-September. A whole group of bacteria of the genus Borrelia causes the disease.
Borreliosis has three stages:
- First: general symptoms: headache and muscle pain; temperature 38 ° C; chills, vomiting, nausea; pain and sore throat, cough are possible. Local symptoms: the bite site becomes red, swollen, itching and soreness occur, ring-shaped erythema is formed.
- Second: damage to the central nervous system; all signs of the first stage disappear.
- Third: develops after a few months / years, Borells spread throughout the body and can settle in any organ. Causes damage to the central nervous system, arthritis, acrodermatitis.
The disease usually “chooses” the weakest system of the human body and begins its activity from there. Later, damage to other organs or systems is possible.
Important!
Borreliosis is treatable, but necessary antibiotic treatment under the supervision of doctors. The disease is best cured in the first stage. But even a third person can be helped.
Ehrlichiosis
Anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis are caused by related bacteria. Frequent cases of ehrlichiosis occur in the United States, where there is a natural focus. Since the causative agents of babesiosis and borreliosis are also present, complex infection with viruses from the same arthropod can occur.
Symptoms of these two diseases are similar. About 12 days after the tick attack, a person feels:
- weakness;
- myalgia;
- nausea
- chills;
- headache.
A person also begins vomiting, coughing, and fever.
Babesiosis (pyroplasmosis)
In humans, it was first diagnosed in 1957 in Yugoslavia, but today it is already widespread throughout Eurasia.
Babesiosis refers to a vector-borne disease and in humans is poorly differentiated from other infections. The incubation period lasts 3-21 days. In the first 10 days of the acute course, a person feels weakness, headache, prostration. Nausea and vomiting occur. On the 3-4th day, jaundice begins to develop, the liver increases. After 6-7 days, oligoanuria and hemoglobinuria develop. Further, a person develops acute renal failure. Without treatment, the disease ends in death.
On a note!
The causative agent of babesiosis persists in the body of arthropods for life.
Definition of an infected tick
Such a procedure can only be carried out in a laboratory at a clinic or hospital. It is impossible to determine the carrier of infectious diseases by eye. You can only focus on the general situation with tick-borne infections in the area. Viruses of dangerous diseases carry all ixodid ticks and a significant part Argasov. We are all used to being afraid taiga tick, but a spotted tick, an inhabitant of grassy meadows, may also be the carrier of encephalitis. And not just encephalitis.
But doubts whether all ticks are really contagious are justified. Any species of ixodidae can be carriers, but not every specific individual will necessarily transmit the disease. Since the infected tick from uninfected without special studies it is impossible to distinguish, it is necessary by default to consider all arthropods as carriers of any disease.
