Connecticut study shows significant increase in % of ticks infected with Lyme Disease and Babesiosis

Blacklegged Tick

Connecticut  11/27/09  connpost.com:  The percentage of black-legged ticks in the area infected with at least two disease-causing microbes — the bacteria that cause Lyme disease and the parasite that causes babesiosis (see posts dated Nov 5^th and 6^th) — may be much higher than previously thought.   A new study, performed by Dr. Eva Sapi of the University of New Haven, collected ticks in four towns in northern Fairfield County — Bethel, Newtown, Redding, and Ridgefield.  It found that in 2009, about 90 percent of the ticks tested had the Lyme disease bacteria. The same study showed about 30 percent of ticks tested had babesia, the parasite that causes the malaria-like illness babesiosis.

Range of blacklegged tick

“To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Maggie Shaw, of the Newtown Tick-borne Disease Committee, Friday. “I’ve had babesiosis. My daughter has had babesiosis.”  Dr. Gary Schleiter, chief of infectious diseases at Danbury Hospital, said that the hospital also has seen an increase in cases of people with babesiosis recently.  “It’s been around here for years, but in the past two or three years it seems to be increasing,” he said. “This study confirms what we’ve been seeing.”  The study, done in coordination with the Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance, is in the second year of a three-year project.

Kirby Stafford of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven has tested the blood of engorged ticks sent to the station and found much lower rates of Lyme infection in the state — as low as 13.6 percent in Newtown and 23 percent statewide in 2008.  At the same time, the number of Lyme disease cases in the state is rising, according to the state Department of Public Health. The state reported 3,896 confirmed cases of Lyme disease reported in Connecticut in 2008, compared to 3,058 in 2007.  By most accounts, that number under-counts the actual number of Lyme cases by a factor of 10.