Watch out for deerticks in the DC Metro area...(and this includes NIH employees)
- From: "the 3rd Man" <sir_der05@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 25 Mar 2007 16:39:43 -0700
I used to live there myself, for awhile. About 12 minutes from NIH on
Rockville Pike. Chevy Chase area. Hated it. Horrible traffic. Idiot
drivers who ignore redlights and bop their interns.
But there were these beautiful deer that would come right through the
yard...
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In Swelling Herds, A Growing Risk
Larger Va. Deer Population Making Lyme Disease a Public Health Issue
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page C01
A surge in reported cases of Lyme disease in Fairfax County has
prompted an outcry from residents who say the lawns and woodlands
surrounding their homes are overrun with infected ticks and the deer
that carry them.
The exponential increase has also led county health officials to
acknowledge that managing Fairfax's burgeoning deer population, which
in some locations has numbered 400 per square mile, is no longer about
nuisance control. It has become a serious public health issue that
requires immediate attention, they say.
Despite Fairfax County's efforts to control the deer population, the
animals are an increasing presence, stripping branches bare and
causing concern about Lyme disease, which is carried by deer ticks.
"The ticks are all over the county," a county health official said.
(Photos By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
A Deadly Disease From a Tick Bite
Lyme disease is a bacterial illness transmitted by ticks that can lead
to nervous system, heart, mental and arthritic complications.
Thwarting Ticks
Steps to prevent Lyme disease include using insect repellent, removing
ticks promptly, tucking pants in socks, wearing light-colored clothing
including long-sleeved shirts, wearing shoes and socks, tucking in
long hair, wearing a hat, and putting clothes in the dryer for at
least a half-hour after...
"Deer are the Metro system for the ticks" that carry Borrelia
burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, said Jorge R.
Arias, who manages Fairfax's disease-carrying-insect program. "The
ticks are all over the county. Wherever the deer can go, they will
take the ticks with them."
Confirmed cases of Lyme disease, which is characterized by such varied
symptoms as a bull's-eye-shaped rash, fever and fatigue, rose from
three in 2004 to 82 in 2006, according to county data. Much of the
increase is due to better reporting of a disease that is often quickly
treated with antibiotics without being confirmed by blood tests.
Still, public health officials say there is little doubt that case
numbers are rising locally and nationally.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
reported cases rose from 19,800 in 2004 to 23,300 in 2005. Cases
remain relatively low in Virginia -- 274 in 2005 compared with numbers
in the thousands in such Northeastern states as Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.
But the increase in the Washington region is causing growing concern.
Loudoun County claims half of all reported cases in Virginia. In
Maryland, Montgomery County has seen confirmed cases grow fivefold
since 2004, to 216.
And the very neighborhoods where deer are least welcome might be
attracting the tick-carrying herds.
"Suburban lots with azaleas and rhododendrons is just like laying out
a buffet for deer," Arias said. "We have created in suburbia what is
essentially a perfect habitat for them." That, in turn, has created
the perfect environment for transmitting the bacteria to humans, he
said.
Country Club Manor in Centreville, a neighborhood of 20-year-old
colonials on the edge of Cub Run Stream Valley Park, is riddled with
hoof prints and deer droppings. The lower branches of dozens of shrubs
are stripped bare. The lawn of Deer Park Elementary School is littered
with torn grass tufts, a telltale sign of deer grazing. It is not
unusual, neighbors say, to see a herd of 12 or more deer ambling down
the road in broad daylight.
Nor is it unusual to pull a tick from one's body after gardening or
playing in the yard with grandchildren, said resident Robert E.
Jakubowski. It has become a way of life on Pamela Drive to tuck
trousers into socks, apply insect repellent and perform a full-body
check for the tiny nymphs, or baby ticks, that usually transmit the
disease, he said.
Lyme disease has become a way of life, too. Jakubowski is one of 13
people within a one-block radius who say they have been treated for
Lyme disease in the past two years. Jakubowski has been treated three
times, he said. A few doors down, Sally L. Pekarik spent eight days in
June in the intensive care unit at Reston Hospital Center after
flulike symptoms prompted a Lyme disease diagnosis.
"The deer population has been out of control for years," Jakubowski
said. "There have been minimal attempts to control it."
(more)...
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