“Ticks are small, and you might not notice when they bite,” but their bites have the potential to “dramatically harm” your health, said Amanda Roome, co-director of the University of New York’s Tick-Borne Disease Center, on The Conversation. Ticks can carry viruses that “really pack a punch” in terms of “how sick they make you” or even trigger an allergy to red meat. And, in the UK, the number of ticks are on the rise.
What are ticks?
They are small arachnids that feed on the blood of animals, including humans. They tend to live in woodland, heathland or scrubland, climbing to the tips of grass blades or other vegetation and using the sensory organs on their front legs to detect carbon dioxide, body heat and movement from a passing animal host. When they bite, they inject an anaesthetic that prevents you from feeling pain or itchiness as they dig in.
The majority of tick bites don’t cause illness – many ticks don't carry disease-causing pathogens and not all bites from an infected tick cause infection. But the illnesses some of them can cause can be pretty nasty.
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The most common is Lyme disease, carried by the castor-bean tick, which can do long-term damage joints, heart and the nervous system. Cases of Lyme disease are spiralling in the US but, in the UK, it’s still pretty rare – although 1,168 cases were recorded last year, a 20% increase from the previous year. But cases could well in increase as the number of ticks in the UK grows.
Some ticks can also carry a type of encephalitis, with symptoms that range from a mild flu-like illness to a stiff neck, brain inflammation and loss of consciousness. These ticks have been detected in a small number of areas in England but very, very few cases of tick-borne encephalitis have been diagnosed. The UKHSA classes the risk to the general population as “very low”.
In the US, other tick-borne illnesses, including Heartland virus disease, Powassan virus disease, babesiosis and anaplasmosis, have been causing concern. They can all cause “serious health problems” and in, “severe cases”, even death, said Roome on The Conversation.
There’s also been much media coverage of a rare allergy that can be triggered by tick bites: Alpha Gal syndrome. Affected people can develop a potentially fatal reaction to red meat, dairy products and some animal-derived medicines and vaccines. There have been more than 110,000 suspected cases in the US and an estimated 5,000 in Australia but hardly any in the UK.
Why are there more ticks?
“Tick populations are expanding geographically because we’re changing the climate,” Vett Lloyd, a tick expert at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, told The Guardian. Our milder winters and warmer summers are boosting ticks’ survival rates, and there are also more mice to act as hosts: ticks “feast on rodents” as well as deer and birds. Reforestation and the expansion of green spaces closer to residential areas also play a role. Ticks – and the pathogens they can carry – “are expanding almost exclusively because of human changes” to the environment.
What can we do?
The best way to prevent infection is to avoid a tick bite “in the first place”, said Roome. If you’re planning a walk away from paths over areas of long grass, make sure you’re wearing socks, sturdy enclosed shoes, long trousers, and a long-sleeved shirt. Choose light-coloured clothing if you can: it can help you spot – and brush off – a tick before it bites. When you get home, check your skin thoroughly for ticks: they tend to lurk in armpits, the groin, behind the knees, around the waistband, the wrists, the back of the neck and the hairline.
If you do get bitten, “try to get the whole tick out”, Charlotte Mao, a US doctor who works with the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, told The Guardian. She recommends using “fine tip tweezers with firm gentle pressure” to grasp the tick at its head and pull it up. “You want to try to not have the mouth parts break off and stay stuck in the skin.” Then you should wash the site of the bite, and your hands, thoroughly with soap and water or rubbing alcohol.
After a tick bite, if you notice a spreading “bullseye” rash at the site of the bite (a common of Lyme disease infection) or symptoms including feeling flu-ey, a facial droop or numbness or tingling in the hands or feet, do seek advice from your GP.
