STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The warm weather has returned — which means ticks are more active, New York State officials are warning.
The New York State Department of Health, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation are reminding New Yorkers and everyone who enjoys the outdoors to protect themselves against ticks and tick-borne illnesses.
“Infected ticks can be found in outdoor areas across much of New York, and if you are bitten by one, you can suffer serious illness and debilitating symptoms,” said New York State Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett. “We are asking New Yorkers who venture outdoors this season to be vigilant and follow our common-sense precautionary measures. Prevention remains the most effective method to protect yourself and others from being bitten by an infected tick.”
Since the state health department began reporting Lyme disease in 1986, New York has averaged more than 5,500 new cases each year — and those numbers are increasing in recent years.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that spreads when an infected black-legged tick, also commonly called a deer tick, bites a person and remains attached for 24 or more hours. The deer tick is the most common tick in New York.
In some cases, an expanding rash resembling a bull’s eye or solid patch will appear near the site of the tick bite. If a rash with a diameter of more than two inches appears or flu-like symptoms occur over a 30-day period following a bite, individuals should contact their health-care provider immediately.
The state encourages people to follow these simple steps to help prevent tick bites while hiking, working, or spending time in wooded areas:
- Wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt for protection.
- Check for ticks often while outdoors and brush off any before they attach.
- Perform a full body check multiple times during the day, as well as at the end of the day, to ensure that no ticks are attached.
- Consider using repellents containing DEET, picaridin or IR3535, and follow label instructions.
Tick bites can also transmit other diseases, though some are less common. Babesiosis and anaplasmosis average 453 and 759 cases annually since 2011, respectively. Rare diseases like Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever average 30 cases annually since 2011, and Powassan encephalitis totals 30 cases since 2011.
The state said these diseases vary in severity, but all can cause serious illness and even death if left untreated.
And most recently, the Asian longhorned tick was identified in New York State for the first time, found in several locations in New York City, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley. It was first discovered in the southernmost part of Staten Island in 2018.
The Asian longhorned tick, or haemaphysalis longicornis, is a recently recognized invasive species usually found in areas of east Asia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. While it has transmitted disease to humans in other parts of the world, more research is needed to determine whether this can occur in the United States.
The state has tested more than 2,000 Asian longhorned ticks and hasn’t found any disease-causing agents.
But New Yorkers should still take precautions to protect themselves against all ticks present in the state, officials say.
Prevention can include everything from doing routine tick checks to wearing repellant clothing when outdoors. You can also treat your yard with tick-killing insecticides and protect your pets using products with rapid kill or knock-down.
The goal of a daily tick check is early detection and safe removal of attached ticks, according to the New York State Integrated Pest Management.
A thorough tick check is getting to know all of your freckles and other skin blemishes. Then use your fingers and eyes to search all parts of your body for any freckles that might be ticks.
You should make daily tick checks part of your routine both during and after a shower, when you get up in the morning, before you go to bed, or all of the above, according to the organization.
So what do you do if you’re bitten by a tick?
Experts say there’s one essential step that you should always take following its removal: Keep it.
“The thing is, because different ticks transmit different pathogens, knowing which tick species you have and also which [tick] life stage you have can help narrow down that list,” Jean Tsao, an associate professor at Michigan State University who researches ticks and tick-borne illness, recently told the Advance/SiLive’s Michigan-based sister publication, MLive.com.
After an embedded tick is carefully removed, Tsao told MLive.com to place the tick in a resealable plastic bag and freeze it — which preserves it for easier identification. (An unfrozen tick in a plastic bag will eventually dry up and be tough to ID, she said.)
Further, Tsao said the bag should be labeled with the date of the tick’s removal and potential dates and locations where it may have been picked up, which can help further narrow down the possible pathogens should a person become ill.
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