Wildlife is fraught with a lot of dangers for humans, since it is in forests and fields that not only large predators (wolves, bears, etc.) are found, but also very small ones that are invisible - ticks. These bloodsuckers themselves are not dangerous, but some of their representatives are carriers of diseases dangerous to humans. It is also worth noting that ticks can be found within city limits.
Be careful, ticks!
What diseases do ticks transmit to humans?
The symptoms and treatment of each ailment are of interest to many Russian citizens. A tick bite is not only an unpleasant incident in a person’s life. It can bring a lot of troubles and harm your health. The question of what diseases ticks transmit to humans interests many.
The most well-known pathologies are tick-borne encephalitis, Lyme disease or tick-borne borreliosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, relapsing tick-borne fever, tularemia, spotted fever. What diseases ticks transmit to humans, symptoms of infection and treatment will be discussed in that article.
Conclusion
It is difficult to say exactly what consequences will arise for a person who encounters a tick. The main thing is that he contact a specialist, undergo diagnostics and treatment. Only there will he be able to prevent the development of dangerous ailments that can have an extremely negative impact on his body.
Don’t forget that according to statistics, at least 100 people die from ticks in Russia every year. Therefore, it would be a good idea to vaccinate once every six months, that is, vaccinate yourself and your pet. And when visiting the forest, be sure to use repellent.
Tick-borne encephalitis
One of the diseases transmitted by ticks to humans is tick-borne encephalitis. This pathology is characterized by damage to the spinal cord and brain by flavovirus. The infection is transmitted by the bite of an ixoid tick. On the territory of the Russian Federation, tick-borne encephalitis is common in the Far East and Siberia, but there are cases of infection in the central part of the country.
The disease refers to vector-borne infections that enter the human body through insect bites. The period of infection occurs in spring and summer, occasionally in autumn. Every year, about 6 thousand people infected with tick-borne encephalitis are detected in Russia.
Statistics
According to the Russian Research Anti-Plague Institute "Microbe" of Rospotrebnadzor (Saratov), in 2021, 509 thousand 262 people visited Russian medical institutions due to tick bites - 6% more than in 2021. 1 thousand 943 cases of infection with tick-borne encephalitis and 6 thousand 717 cases of infection with tick-borne borreliosis have been registered. In total, 28 people died from tick-borne infections (two less than in 2021) in 14 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.
The highest incidence rates of tick-borne infections were recorded in the Kirov region, Perm region and Udmurtia.
In Moscow in 2021, 41 cases of tick-borne encephalitis and 30 cases of tick-borne borreliosis were registered.
In 2021, acaricidal treatments were carried out on an area of 243.5 thousand hectares, which is 50% more than in 2021. At the same time, in 2018, the total area of the treated territory may exceed 300 thousand hectares.
According to Rospotrebnadzor, as of April 6, 2021, more than 700 thousand Russians have received vaccinations against tick-borne encephalitis. In total, 2.7 million Russians were vaccinated in 2021.
The causative agent of infection
As mentioned above, the causative agent of the infection is a flavovirus, the size of which is very small (smaller than the influenza virus), which allows it to penetrate all parts of the immune system.
At low temperatures, the virus maintains long viability (up to two months), but is unstable to high temperatures. When boiled, it dies very quickly and is also unstable to disinfectants.
You can become infected with flavovirus only through a tick bite. When walking through a forest or park area, you should be more careful and remember what diseases ticks transmit.
Eight-legged soldiers: tick-borne infections as bioweapons?
: 03.11.2020
Epidemics of infectious diseases are always accompanied by a trail of fake news and various conspiracy theories, which in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic have acquired an unprecedented scale thanks to modern information and communication technologies. In this situation, it is instructive to consider rumors and suspicions associated with acute mass outbreaks of other diseases - tick-borne infections. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valentin Viktorovich VLASOV spoke about these tenacious conspiracy theories in the journal “SCIENCE First Hand”.
In May 2019, Stanford University professor Chris Newby published the book “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons,” which sparked fierce public debate and inquiries in the US Congress. Author, who herself has chronic Lyme disease
(
tick-borne borreliosis
), claimed that in the 1960s. In experiments to create bioweapons, the US military infected Ixodid ticks with difficult-to-diagnose pathogens, including the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. And the first case of a mass outbreak of this infection in the United States was in the late 1960s and 1970s. occurred after an accidental “leakage” of infection carriers during field testing.
Is there any rational grain in these assumptions? It must be said that ixodid ticks are, at first glance, quite competent “eight-legged soldiers.” These small arthropods (not to be confused with insects that have six legs!) have a unique organ that combines the functions of a TV and a gas analyzer, with which they can detect an “enemy” (prey) at a distance of 20 m, and a powerful piercing-sucking apparatus. At the same time, they are very unpretentious and are able to go without food for months and successfully winter in plant litter. And most importantly, they can serve as carriers of viruses, bacteria and protozoa - the causative agents of about three dozen diseases dangerous to humans and domestic animals.
The most dangerous and well-known among these pathogens in Russia is the tick-borne encephalitis virus
, which can cause severe neuroinfection and even death of the patient. A massive outbreak of this disease, which began in the Soviet Far East in the early 1930s, gave rise to speculation that the pathogen was brought to the territory of the USSR by the Japanese military.
In principle, there were grounds for such theories: in those years, Japan was the only country that not only developed, but also used biological weapons. On the occupied territory of China, 20 km south of Harbin, “Detachment No. 731” was based, created by Lieutenant General of the Medical Service Shiro Ishii, whose employees multiplied and infected insects with pathogens, and then tested them on prisoners and the local population. Epidemics caused by the actions of the Japanese military led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Chinese. “Detachment No. 731” mainly worked with insects, but there are also references to ticks, as well as the development of methods for using biological weapons for sabotage.
What does science say about this? The fact is that in the Far East, both local residents and visitors had been suffering from the disease, known to us as tick-borne encephalitis, for a long time, but a massive outbreak of infection occurred only when, due to the worsening relations between the USSR and Japan, army units were stationed in forest areas . The Far Eastern expedition of the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR, led by virologist L.A. Zilber, sent to the epidemic focus in 1937, managed to identify pathogen carriers in record time, isolate several strains of the virus and obtain antibodies to it.
Thanks to recommendations on preventive measures, the epidemic receded, but the medical heroes themselves had to pay dearly for it: the leader of the expedition, Lev Zilber, and several of its participants were arrested and sent to a camp on charges of planned (!) sabotage - infecting the population of Moscow with a new terrible virus through the city water supply .
Tick-borne conspiracy theories have reared their head again 80 years after Silber's arrest. Newby's book served as a fuse for a situation that was already explosive: today in the United States, about 30 thousand people with Lyme disease are officially registered annually, although the real figure may be much higher, since most infected people do not seek medical help. 10–20% of patients develop a chronic form of the disease, which until recently was not recognized at all by official American medicine. About $1.3 billion is spent annually on treating patients suffering from this disease in the United States.
Newby received the basic information for her book in 2013 from the famous biologist, a major specialist in medical entomology, Willy Burgdorfer, who was an employee of the Rocky Mountain Laboratory
) and worked in a military laboratory on the island.
Plum near o. Long Island in New York. It was he who in 1982 published an article with the first description of the causative agents of Lyme disease - Borrelia
, “relatives” of the causative agents of syphilis.
According to Newby, Burgdorfer's tasks included breeding fleas, mosquitoes and ticks and infecting them with dangerous viruses and bacteria that cause human diseases. It was planned to deliver infected insects and ticks to enemy territory using aviation. And to find out how quickly carriers of infections spread, in some areas of the United States they released uninfected ticks and tracked their migrations. By the way, in the 1980s. in regions adjacent to the island. Plam appeared one-star pincers
, which were experimented with in the laboratory.
Interpreting the scientist’s statements, Newby speaks of the causative agent of Lyme disease not as an ordinary local pathogen, but as a very dangerous strain that was specially selected in the laboratory to cause maximum damage to people. However, she was unable to find any official documents relating to the testing of bioweapons, and Burgdorfer himself died in 2014. However, in addition to his confessions, there are other sources of information about secret experiments on the island. Plum, including field trials with the release of pathogenic agents into the external environment using deer and birds as carriers, which theoretically could leave the island.
In 1972, the international Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction was adopted. However, by that time, a number of countries, including the USSR, had already created means for conducting biological warfare, designed to defeat enemy personnel and destroy farm animals and plants. Plants have been developed to produce such pathogens, and means to transport them by air and spread them using bombs and aerosol sprays.
For example, during experiments in the New York subway, model bacteria were placed in ventilation systems, and air flows from moving trains carried them through underground tunnels. Experiments have shown that in this way pathogens can end up in the lungs of millions of passengers in just a matter of days. Data on many other similar tests are still classified.
Against this background, the version of the spread of Lyme disease from a secret military laboratory does not seem so fantastic. But scientists have serious arguments. Borrelia, judging by the available data, appeared on the American continent a long time ago. They were also found in animal and human tissues from museum collections, and in ticks collected back in the 1940s. on the same Long Island.
American specialists from Yale University, based on deciphering a large number of Borrelia genomes, reconstructed the evolutionary history of these bacteria in North America and proved that at least about 60 thousand years ago they were distributed in the northeast and Midwest of the current USA. In their opinion, the modern epidemic of Lyme disease is due to changes in the natural environment that began after the colonization of the continent about 700 years ago, and climate changes in the last century, which contributed to the expansion of habitats for Ixodid ticks. At the same time, the most pathogenic Borrelia strains are found in all surveyed regions and, obviously, formed independently and on a different genomic “background”.
So, taking into account the knowledge and technology of the middle of the last century, Burgdorfer could not have “created” Borrelia or genetically modified them. But I really had the opportunity to select the most pathogenic strains. However, the chance that the current dire situation with Lyme disease in the United States is related to a “leak” of the pathogen that occurred more than half a century ago is almost zero.
Taking into account scientific arguments, it should be recognized that Lyme disease is a typical natural focal infection in the United States. By the way, Japan, Turkey and Korea have also faced the problem of tick-borne borreliosis in recent years, and in some areas of Belarus the infection of the European forest tick with borreliosis reaches 60%. This disease is also relevant for our country: tick-borne borreliosis has been registered in 73 regions of the Russian Federation, while the risk of getting sick is highest in the Kama region, the Urals, the Middle Urals and the south of Western Siberia.
One of the main problems with tick-borne borreliosis is related to its diagnosis in the early stages of the disease. After all, the sooner treatment is started, the greater the chance of avoiding the disease becoming chronic. And the best protection against this and other tick-borne infections will be knowledge about the lifestyle of their eight-legged blood-sucking carriers and methods of protection against them.
Read more about this in the next issue of the magazine “SCIENCE First Hand”
Photo: Amblyomma americanum (left) is widespread in the southeastern United States today. It is believed that these ticks were infected with Borrelia - the causative agent of Lyme disease (right) at a military training ground on the island. Plum. Public Domain; photo of borrelia N. Fomenko
: 03.11.2020
Types of disease
Tick-borne encephalitis can occur in three forms:
- meningeal,
- feverish,
- focal.
The meningeal form of the disease is characterized by inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. It manifests itself in 30% of patients.
The febrile form is characterized by increased body temperature and fever. This form occurs in 50% of infected people.
The focal form of the disease involves the brain in the process of damage, accompanied by neurological symptoms.
The incubation period generally lasts two weeks. But science knows cases of a long incubation period (up to 1 month), as well as lightning-fast manifestations of the disease. In some infected people, the first symptoms began to appear a day after the insect bite.
During the incubation period, the virus spreads through the blood, attacks the immune system, after which the first symptoms begin to appear, and the flavovirus affects the kidneys, liver, lymph nodes and central nervous system.
The primary signs of the disease are symptoms corresponding to an increase in body temperature. Chills, general weakness, nausea and vomiting, headache, and muscle pain appear. Such signs of illness are typical for young children. If you have these symptoms, you should pay attention to redness on the body and whites of the eyes. This is typical for all forms of the disease at the initial stage. Further, each of the forms develops in its own way.
The first symptoms of the disease after a tick bite
After a tick bite, a person may experience various symptoms. Basically, their manifestation depends on the type of illness the patient has.
Tick-borne encephalitis
Tick-borne encephalitis is a viral disease. Its development is provoked by the penetration into the body of pathogenic particles, the tick-borne encephalitis virus, the carrier of which is the tick. The danger of this disease is that it can quickly affect the gray matter of the brain, its membrane, spinal cord, and lead to tick paralysis.
In its development, the disease goes through several main stages:
Stage 1 (viremic). Its duration varies from 2 to 4 days. During it, the patient feels a sharp headache, weakness, fever, and myalgia. Typically, such symptoms indicate the development of a common cold or pneumonia. Therefore, most often the patient does not attach much importance to them.
Stage 2. On it, the patient develops symptoms that occur after remission. This stage lasts 8 days. The disease then affects the nervous system and leads to the development of meningitis. In this case, the patient is bothered by a severe headache, stiffness of muscle tissue, and fever.
Stage 3. During it, a person develops the first signs of encephalitis. At the same time, the functioning of his nervous system deteriorates, consciousness is impaired, movements become limited, and sensitivity sharply decreases.
With the Far Eastern type of encephalitis, the patient’s symptoms develop rapidly. Moreover, this type of disease is considered by doctors to be the most dangerous. It is this that reduces the functioning of the respiratory system and requires transferring the patient to tracheal intubation and connecting him to a ventilator.
Doctors first relieve the patient of negative symptoms. But he is being treated in a hospital. The patient is prescribed glucocorticosteroids.
Tick-borne typhus
Tick-borne typhus appears in citizens living in the Far East, in Siberia. The development of this disease is provoked by the penetration of a tick carrying Rickettsia bacteria into the body.
Most often, this insect lands on people in the spring or summer.
The danger of tick-borne typhus is that bacteria easily penetrate into blood vessels. This leads to the development of endovasculitis.
Symptoms of this disease do not appear in the patient immediately, but only after 4-6 days.
At the same time, he appears:
- the first signs of intoxication of the body. The patient experiences muscle pain, fever, chills, weakness, headache, increased body temperature, which lasts for 2 weeks. Such symptoms appear after an ixodid tick bite;
- necrotic processes in tissues, on external areas of the skin, i.e. in those places where the forest tick was located;
- hyperemic spots on the skin located near the location of the tick;
- rash spots on the skin. Such symptoms appear on the first day after the bite;
- symptoms of an enlarged liver, spleen;
- symptoms of dry tongue mucosa.
Patients with tick-borne typhus are prescribed Tetracycline. Take it for 5-6 days. Moreover, you can take it every 6 hours.
Additionally, the patient is prescribed tetracycline antibiotics.
Age-related tick-borne typhus
Doctors call age-related tick-borne typhus “spirochetosis.” The development of this disease is provoked by cells called “spirochetes”. These are bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. This disease occurs after an argas tick bite.
In this case, the patient appears:
- chills, fever;
- severe headache, pain in muscle tissue, joints;
- fever, body temperature rises to 40 degrees;
- rapid heartbeat, dryness on the outer skin;
- dark red formation. It occurs at the site of tick suction;
- rash that covers the entire body;
- swelling on internal organs. It usually appears on the liver and spleen.
The patient’s symptoms described above disappear after 6 days. But 2-8 days after infection, the patient’s symptoms reappear.
Doctors first prescribe medications to relieve symptoms. In this case, the patient is recommended to drink more warm water.
Additionally, the patient can take antipyretic drugs and receive injections with a solution of sulfocamphocaine. It is injected under the skin.
After stabilization of the patient's condition, antibiotics of the penicillin and tetracycline series are prescribed.
Tularemia
Tularemia is an infectious disease. Its development is provoked by the bacteria Francisella tularensis. Antibiotics help get rid of it.
Moreover, the symptoms of the disease appear in the patient 1-2 hours or even 21 days after the bite.
At the same time he has:
- body temperature rises sharply to 40 degrees;
- severe muscle pain, frequent dizziness, headaches appear;
- appetite suddenly disappears, hyperhidrosis develops, sleep is disturbed;
- frequent vomiting and nosebleeds appear;
- hyperemia occurs on the mucous membranes of the eyes and face;
- Sharp abdominal pain often appears;
- lymph nodes increase sharply.
Most often, ticks provoke the development of fever. Its danger is that negative symptoms in a person can persist for 1 month. The patient is being treated in a hospital. He will have to take antibiotics for 10-14 days.
If the patient develops buboes, he undergoes surgery.
Ehrlichiosis
The development of ehrlichiosis in humans from a tick bite is provoked by rickettsia bacteria. Doctors call this disease “leukocytic rickettsiosis.” This is a very dangerous disease, since it is very difficult for a doctor to make a diagnosis; typical symptoms for this disease do not appear.
In this case, the patient develops:
- fever;
- myalgia;
- headache;
- anorexia due to a sharp loss of appetite;
- weakness, nausea, vomiting.
The diagnosis is made based on an analysis of the number of monocytes in the blood.
In addition to this disease, the patient additionally develops lymphadenopathy.
Treatment of ehrlichiosis (as well as anaplasmosis) is carried out with antibiotics of the tetracycline group.
Babesiosis
The development of babesiosis is caused by Babesia bacteria. In this case, the patient develops jaundice, fever, and anemia. But symptoms appear only after 10-15 days. In some cases, symptoms of infection appear after 6-12 days.
In this case, the patient:
- the temperature after a bite rises to 40 degrees;
- the spleen and liver sharply increase in size.
The patient is prescribed the following medications:
- "Clindamycin."
- "Quinine".
- Azithromycin.
- "Atovaquon."
With this type of disease, the patient is prescribed antibiotics and antiprotozoal drugs at the same time. In severe cases, he is given a blood transfusion.
Tick-borne borreliosis
Tick-borne borreliosis or Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia bacteria. The first symptoms of tick-borne borreliosis appear in the patient after 7-14 days.
Many people confuse tick-borne borreliosis with brucellosis.
Brucellosis mites do not exist in nature, so symptoms of tick-borne brucellosis cannot appear in humans.
For tick-borne borreliosis in a patient:
- fever, headache, myalgia, weakness appear, body temperature rises sharply;
- neck muscle movements become somewhat constrained;
- ring erythema occurs at the site of the bite;
- severe nausea and vomiting appears;
- allergies and rashes appear on the body;
- the functioning of the nervous and cardiovascular systems is disrupted.
Antibiotics help get rid of Lyme disease. Moreover, tetracycline antibiotics are usually prescribed.
And if the central nervous system or cardiac system is damaged, the patient is prescribed penicillin antibiotics.
If Lyme disease is not treated promptly, it can lead to atrophic acarodermatitis.
Hemorrhagic fever
The development of hemorrhagic fever is provoked by various viruses. In this case, the patient’s blood vessels are affected, bleeding often appears, and the color of the outer skin changes. The patient is prescribed vitamins P, C. Additionally, he is injected with a glucose solution. In severe cases, he is given a blood transfusion and prescribed iron supplements.
Tsutsugamushi fever
Tsutsugamushi fever is considered a Japanese river fever. Its development is provoked by the penetration into the body of blood-sucking bacteria "rickettsia", the larvae of the red mite.
In this case, the patient:
- redness and rash appear on the surface of the skin;
- fever and lymphadenopathy develop;
- heart function is disrupted;
- sleep deteriorates, frequent hallucinations occur;
- the functioning of the urinary system is disrupted;
- Frequent pain occurs, localized in the lower abdomen.
Tetracycline antibiotics, Levomycetin, help.
North Asian tick-borne rickettsiosis
The development of North Asian tick-borne rickettsiosis is provoked by the bacteria “rickettsia”, which is produced by the tick Rickettsia sibirica.
In this case, the patient:
- fever, chills appear;
- hyperhidrosis develops;
- there is body aches, joint pain, weakness;
- problems with sleep appear;
- appetite is impaired;
- hyperemia occurs on the surface of the skin;
- severe swelling appears;
- the infiltrate accumulates under a brown crust, i.e. at the site of the bite;
- a rash appears all over the body;
- the functioning of the cardiovascular system is disrupted.
The above symptoms can persist from 1 to 20 days. Taking tetracycline antibiotics helps get rid of them. The patient may also undergo detoxification therapy.
Vesicular rickettsiosis
The development of vesicular rickettsiosis is provoked by the bacteria Rickettsia akari, transmitted by small colorless mites.
Typically, such bacteria live on domestic mice, so they are especially dangerous for humans. First, the patient develops a scab. Later, he develops a fever and a crust forms in the areas where the rash forms.
In this case, the patient:
- lymph nodes become inflamed.
- chills occur, photophobia develops;
- myalgia and frequent headaches appear.
Antibiotics and cleaning the room from pests help get rid of this disease. In addition, insecto-acaricidal preparations help get rid of ticks.
Blue disease
Rocky Mountain spotted fever is caused by bacteria of the genus Rickettsia. In this case, the patient develops acute symptoms. They usually appear within 3-14 days.
At the same time he has:
- fever, chills, headache, weakness, myalgia, joint pain appear;
- Frequent vomiting occurs, and the lymph nodes increase in size excessively.
The patient may also develop symptoms of thrombohemorrhagic syndrome, characterized by frequent vomiting of blood, nosebleeds, and hyperemia of the skin surface.
Moreover, a couple of days after the first symptoms appear, the patient develops a rash all over the body.
Later, petechiae appear at the site of the rash (blood flows under the skin).
Etiotropic medications help get rid of this disease. For example, Doxycycline. Medicines containing heparin help get rid of thrombohemorrhagic syndrome.
Remember: if the patient does not treat the disease, he may develop extensive necrosis, affecting the structure of the outer skin.
Marseille fever
Marseilles fever is also caused by rickettsial bacteria, which are spread by ticks.
In this case, the patient:
- fever develops;
- lymph nodes increase in size excessively;
- a maculopapular rash appears;
- hyperemia occurs on the surface of the skin, severe swelling;
- dark red neoplasms are formed, localized at the site of the bite.
This disease can only be treated in a hospital. In this case, the patient is prescribed tetracycline antibiotics. Additionally, he may be prescribed other medications to help get rid of swelling, redness, and other symptoms. The patient is usually prescribed antihistamines.
After Marseilles fever, the patient develops strong immunity. He will not be able to become infected with this disease a second time.
Tick-borne borreliosis or Lyme disease
What infections do ticks carry? In addition to the flavovirus, the ixodid tick can become a carrier of Borrelia, which, when entering the human body, causes Lyme disease.
The pathology is named after the small American town in which cases of human infection were first identified. Symptoms of tick-borne borreliosis are swelling in the area of the bite, which begins to develop after the incubation period.
The incubation period for Lyme disease is 1-2 weeks, but there are known cases of longer manifestations of the pathology. The inflamed and reddened wound gradually grows. The spot can reach 20 cm in diameter. Science knows cases when the inflamed area reached 60 cm. If you do not seek medical help, then after 8 weeks the bite site will become the same, the swelling and redness will go away, but this fact does not mean that the disease has passed. On the contrary, the pathology will begin to develop further and move to the next stage.
At the second stage of the disease, the infection begins to affect the liver, kidneys, heart, central nervous system, and skin (various redness and rashes are possible). The fact is that if you do not seek help from a specialist in time, the pathology will develop into an advanced form, the treatment of which is a long and labor-intensive process.
It is worth remembering that tick-borne diseases can not only cause health problems in humans, but can also be fatal. It is known that people who do not seek help from a medical institution often become disabled. The sooner tick-borne borreliosis is detected and treated, the faster and easier it will be to achieve a full recovery.
Consequences of a tick bite
A tick that has entered the body must be disposed of. Moreover, the person needs to seek help at the emergency room. The patient will not be able to remove the insect on his own without damaging its body. Doctors remove ticks with a special tool. Moreover, it is in the emergency room that the doctor will be able to remove not only the body of the tick, but also its proboscis and head. After removal, he is obliged to treat the affected area with a disinfectant solution.
To prevent the development of tick-borne encephalitis, the doctor must give the person an injection of immunoglobulin. The doctor must also send the insect for analysis. This is the only way to check whether it is a carrier of infections or not.
If the insect was a carrier of the infection, then the person is prescribed antiviral and antibacterial medications.
Scabies
This is a disease that is transmitted by the bite of a microscopic itch. The parasite penetrates the human skin and begins to move there, as a result of which tubercles appear on the body. The disease is accompanied by itching and burning. Severe subcutaneous pain is possible. The first symptoms of the pathology are the appearance of small pink lumps between the fingers, which is accompanied by severe itching. The disease is contagious and can be transmitted from one person to another through contact.
Every person should know what infections ticks carry. After all, scabies affects the entire human body, with the exception of the face and heels (rough skin). The pathology spreads quickly, it is impossible not to notice it.
Treatment of scabies
Scabies is treated with a variety of medications, the most effective of which are the following:
- Sulfuric ointment;
- zinc ointment;
- benzyl benzoate;
- Spregal spray;
- Ivermectin tablets.
In addition to treating the infected person, it is worth taking care of his clothes and bedding. They are changed every day. Dirty linen is soaked in hot water, everything that the patient touches is treated daily. This will help reduce the risk of infection in your household. During illness, the infected person’s contact with others is limited. Also, you should not allow pets near the infected person, as they can become carriers of scabies.
Relapsing tick-borne typhus
Not many people know what diseases ticks transmit to humans, the symptoms of which may initially go unnoticed. One of these diseases is relapsing tick-borne typhus. It can be caused by Borrelia entering the body. The carrier of the infection is the argas mite.
The incubation period of the pathology ranges from 3 to 16 days. The very next day after contact with the parasite, the bite site turns purple and a small induration (1 mm) appears. Over the next 2-5 days, a papule appears, surrounded by a blue-red hemorrhagic ring, which disappears after a few days. A pink swelling remains in its place.
The disease is accompanied by fevers. The first attack occurs a few days after the onset of disease progression, which is characterized by an increase in temperature to 39-40 °C. A sick person is delirious in his sleep, often changes his body position, he is very active in his sleep, and temporary loss of consciousness is possible. The attack is often accompanied by nausea and vomiting.
After the end of the first febrile attack, a period of apyrexia begins, but after a day everything repeats itself. The condition lasts longer, reaching seven days. Subsequent attacks may be shorter in duration, and the intervals between them usually increase.
Paralysis
In our region we also have anoplasmosis and ehrlichiosis, for which ticks also need to be tested. The second most pressing infection in our country is ixodid tick-borne paralysis, a bacterium.
How to protect yourself. If you are bitten by a tick, you should remove the tick as quickly as possible. There are special tools for this that you can find on the Internet, and this mite can also be removed using a thread. The sooner you remove a tick from your body, the fewer pathogens (bacteria) it can transmit to you. Plus, it would not be amiss to examine this tick for pathogens, which is the basis for further prevention. If you study its collection of paralysis within 5 days after sucking a tick, you can prevent this serious disease (paralysis - Ed.) by using antibiotics that your doctor will prescribe to you.
How to remove a tick. It must be removed mechanically. To do this, it must be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise with special tools or tweezers.
Lubricating it with oil and waiting for the tick to stop receiving air is a very long process, although productive. At this time, the tick will not be able to transmit the pathogen to you, since its spiracle is covered with lids. But, again, the tick will remain alive for a long time. In addition, you cannot find this oil in all conditions, especially if you are in the forest, outdoors or somewhere else.
But the thread is actually always with you.
How to dress. Another, no longer specific, means of preventing paralysis is your personal protection against ticks—clothing. It is difficult to force a person to completely cover himself in hot weather in summer and have cuffs at the throat on his arms and legs, but at least the clothes should be light-colored if you are in nature so that you can always notice a tick. The tick is very small (as a rule, nymphs are attached, they are 1-2 mm in size), and it is very difficult to notice.
An adult tick is 2-3 mm long. Moreover, the female feeds for about a week. During this time, you will, of course, notice it, but it may be very late, since within a day it will transmit such a dangerous pathogen as paralysis. And tick-borne encephalitis and infectious pathogens will generally arrive immediately, because they are located in the salivary glands.
Therefore, I say again that the sooner you get a tick, the more successfully this issue will be resolved for you, with timely prevention.
Tularemia
Tularemia is an acute infection that occurs due to the penetration of the bacteria Francisella tularensis into the human body. The disease is included in the list of especially dangerous ones. It is put on a par with cholera, plague and even anthrax.
The tularemia bacillus is a dangerous microorganism. It is resistant to low air temperatures and dies at high temperatures. At zero air temperature the bacterium lives for about six months, at 8-12 °C it survives for a month, and lives for a long time in the skins of dead animals. The tularemia bacillus dies when treated with disinfectants and exposed to high temperature.
Wild animals and rodents serve as reservoirs for storing infection. They are not carriers of the disease. The carrier of the infection is a tick that has bitten an infected animal.
A person with tularemia is not contagious. This disease can be contracted not only from an insect bite, but also from cutting the skins of a sick animal or consuming contaminated water or food. The infection can be transmitted to humans through airborne droplets. There are cases where people became infected with tularemia by inhaling dust from contaminated grain. Infection is possible when cutting meat. For example, in meat processing plants.
When and how does infection occur?
The pathogen (virus, bacteria) enters the tick's body with the blood of sick animals. Having passed a certain stage of development there, it enters the body of a person or animal when bitten by a parasite with saliva in the first few minutes and causes clinical signs of the disease.
While waiting for prey, the tick climbs onto the stems of herbaceous plants. Having caught the scent of a warm-blooded creature, it quickly jumps onto it and crawls to open areas of the body. Most often, the places where it is localized are:
- groin area;
- armpits;
- scalp;
- neck;
- stomach;
- breast.
The bite itself is painless and does not cause trouble to the person due to the injection of saliva containing analgesics. It also serves as a means for secure attachment of the parasite and blocks immune cells at the site of the bite. This allows pathogenic microorganisms to quickly penetrate the human body and migrate through the bloodstream to the site of their main localization.
Basically, people do not notice the presence of a tick in the first day after it is sucked on due to its small size, which is only a few millimeters. Fed with blood, the female’s abdomen gradually increases almost a hundred times over several days and becomes clearly visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, by this time the infectious agent has already begun to multiply in the human body and cause clinical signs of the disease.
The danger of a male bite also lies in the fact that it is able to become saturated with human blood in just a few hours and fall off on its own unnoticed. Without noticing a tick, people do not pay much attention to the redness or discomfort that appears until more dangerous disease symptoms appear.
Mechanism of infection
It should be noted that not all ticks are disease carriers. People and all warm-blooded animals should be wary of only three species among 40 thousand:
- ixodidae;
- Gamasaceae;
- Argasaceae
However, in order for a tick to become a carrier of diseases, it itself needs to become infected. There is a constant cycle in the infection mechanism. Having bitten an infected mammal, the tick absorbs the virus of typhoid, tularemia, encephalitis, borreliosis, etc. Thus, this arachnid becomes infected. After some time, it attacks another animal, thereby infecting it with the injected saliva. The infected animal again becomes a victim of an already uninfected tick, which again absorbs the virus. And so it goes in circles.
Most often, the sources of infections are small rodents of the mouse family - field mice, shrews, etc. It should be noted that during its existence, the tick changes up to 4 hosts.
Interesting! The virus that enters the body of an arthropod remains there until the end of its life.
Both mammals and humans can become infected from a tick bite. Tick-borne encephalitis, for example, can be acquired completely imperceptibly. Having found a place unprotected by clothing, the arachnid bites into the skin with its oral appendages (chelicerae). After which the tick inserts a proboscis with teeth into the resulting hole, which securely fixes it on the victim’s body.
Insect saliva contains a substance that makes blood clotting difficult. Thanks to this, they drink enough of it. In addition, a substance gets into the wound, making the bite painless. This means that it will be difficult for a person to notice the attached tick. Having drunk enough, he takes out his proboscis and falls to the ground.
It is not possible to identify an infected tick by appearance. It needs to be taken to a laboratory where diagnostics will be performed.
Tularemia therapy
A person is very susceptible to this infection; almost everyone infected begins to get sick. The disease can occur in various forms and cause complications, such as meningitis, arthritis, meningoencephalitis, and inflammation of the heart sac.
Treatment of tularemia is carried out only in a hospital infectious diseases department. Broad-spectrum antibacterial drugs are prescribed. If they do not help, then second-line antibiotics are used. To get rid of intoxication from the body, detoxification therapy is used. The patient is discharged only after his complete recovery.
Babesiosis
When understanding the diseases that ticks carry, it is worth paying attention to babesiosis. This is a dangerous disease that is accompanied by general intoxication of the body, jaundice and anemia. This infection is caused by protozoa of the genus Babesia.
The vector of the disease is the widespread pasture tick lxodes ricinus, as well as the argas tick. Vectors are distributed throughout the world. In Russia, such a tick lives in the south of Siberia, the south of the European part and the north-west.
Symptoms of the disease are headaches, increased body temperature, decreased hemoglobin and the development of anemia, decreased appetite, muscle pain, and mood swings. Babesiosis can easily be confused with the common cold. But, unlike a cold, in this case antiviral drugs will not help.
The disease can cause complications such as renal failure, multiple organ failure, acute renal and hepatic failure, and pneumonia.
Symptoms of tick-borne diseases
The development of symptoms depends on the pathogen, which can enter the human body along with the saliva of the tick after a bite. Since ticks carry quite a lot of diseases, the manifestations of infection are varied.
Characteristic symptoms of the most common tick-borne diseases
| Disease | Main symptoms |
| Lyme disease | Fever, headache, fatigue, neck stiffness, nausea, vomiting. A characteristic symptom is a specific skin rash, spreading ring-shaped redness - erythema migrans. |
| Tick-borne encephalitis | A sudden increase in body temperature to 38-39 °C, headache, stiff neck muscles, repeated vomiting. Development of general weakness, pain in the muscles of the back, neck, and arms. Stupidity of consciousness may occur. Meningeal syndrome occurs, which is accompanied by atrophic paralysis. |
| Ehrlichiosis | Acute onset with a sharp rise in temperature and trembling. Muscle and joint pain and general malaise are typical. Manifestations of ehrlichiosis include rash, vomiting or nausea, and abdominal pain (in the abdomen). |
| Tick-borne relapsing fever | The clinical picture develops approximately on the 14th day of the disease after the tick bite. The disease begins acutely with fever and severe headaches. In addition, insomnia and weakness appear, and appetite disappears. By the time the temperature rises, a dark cherry papule forms on the skin, and various forms of rashes appear. Sometimes jaundice develops, and moderate pain in the joints and calf muscles is observed. |
Treatment of pathology
Therapy for babesiosis is carried out using antiparasitic drugs, such as a combination of quinine and Clindamycin, a combination of Co-trimoxazole and Pentamidine, Diisocyanate, and the simultaneous administration of Atovacone and Azithromycin.
This article examined in detail the diseases that ticks transmit to humans. It is worth noting that all of them are quite dangerous, and some of them are on a par with diseases from which entire cities died out (plague, cholera, etc.). Almost all types of ticks, which are carriers of a dangerous infection, live on the territory of the Russian Federation. Every year, due to their carelessness, walking in the forest or park, several thousand people become infected. Having discovered an insect bite on the body or the insect itself, you should seek help from specialists, and send the tick itself for examination to a laboratory. After all, it is better to play it safe and carry out preventive measures on time or start treatment than to later face advanced pathology and often irreversible consequences.
How to reduce the risk of serious consequences from a tick bite?
First of all, if you find a tick on your body, you should immediately seek help from a medical facility. There, the insect will be completely removed from the bite site with a special tool, the wound will be treated and submitted for testing. Then an immunoglobulin vaccination will be given, which will reduce the likely risk of contracting encephalitis. The test results will allow you to quickly begin treatment - before the acute form of the disease occurs. This will avoid serious consequences that could affect a person’s future life.
It is difficult to predict what complications an encounter with an insect such as a tick may result in. It is necessary to properly protect yourself from being bitten. When going to the forest or places where tall grass grows, you need to choose completely closed clothing and shoes. This will prevent the tick from attaching itself to the body. Also, a very important step for nature lovers will be preventive vaccination, which is administered three times a year. The symptoms that arise after a bite should not be ignored. Their insidiousness lies in the periodic attenuation, which allows the patient to think about a possible cure.
