Tick season has begun and there are a few things you should know.
Manitoba Health Medical Officer of Health Dr. Richard Rusk says it's the blacklegged deer ticks which are of the highest concern. Dr. Rusk notes the blacklegged deer ticks can transfer Lyme disease along with two other bacterias which have been found in Manitoba over the last two years known as Anaplasmosis and Babeiosis.
"For Lyme disease, you won't be getting it before 24 hours because they need a decent amount of the blood meal for enough bacteria to have been transferred. With Lyme disease we know that you tend to have a rash and that's your first tip off. Whereas with these other ones (Anaplasmosis and Babeiosis) you're just going to end up with very similar symptoms to Lyme disease. [That includes] achy joints, achy muscles, for sure you end up with a fever, often you have a neck ache or headaches. So you'll get that with all of these diseases but you don't tend to see the rash with Anaplasmosis and Babesiosis."
When you find a tick he explains the best thing is to use a pair of tweezers to pull them off because, "if you just grab them with your fingers there is a very small chance but there is a chance that you can actually inject some of the stomach contents of the tick into their bite. Therefore, potentially, you can be infecting yourself. If you pull it off with tweezers you're catching the mouth part and you're actually able to pull out the whole thing."
He says he discourages against using Vaseline or burning to remove ticks.
Manitoba Health has been monitoring and assessing the expansion of blacklegged ticks in Manitoba and named the following areas as areas of risk in southeastern Manitoba.
- the southeast corner of the province, where the border meets Ontario and Minnesota, which extends north into Moose Lake Provincial Park and west to Sprague.
- the St. Malo region including the St. Malo Provincial Park and the communities of Vita and Arbakka near the U.S. border, north through the communities of Roseau River, Kleefeld and St. Malo.
- the Richer/Ste. Genevieve area, located east of Winnipeg along the Agassiz and Sandilands provincial forests, extending south to Ste. Anne and north into the Birds Hill Provincial Park.
- the Winnipeg area, which consists of isolated pockets along the Red, Seine and Assiniboine river corridors.
It should be noted that blacklegged ticks can be found in other areas of Manitoba, but the risk of Lyme disease is relatively low outside of the risk areas identified above by Manitoba Health.
Ticks are present in Manitoba all summer long says Dr. Rusk, "We'll get ticks basically from now all the way through to the fall but it's your blacklegged ticks that are your important ones. You'll get these big dog ticks all the way through but the blacklegged ticks, they're here now as nymphs and then it kind of settles down by July but then towards the end of August you'll start to find the adult of the blacklegged tick again. So they kind of have two phases where the dog tick is here now until the end of summer."
As a precaution against having a tick bite Dr. Rusk explains you should be wearing light coloured clothing to more easily see them and spray your shoes and bottom of your legs or pants with tick repellent spray.
Sat, Apr 20, 8:27 AM
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