EDMONTON — With sunny weather and lush wilderness across Canada, many people are heading outdoors for camping, hiking or picnics in wooded areas. That’s also where a serious health risk could be lurking in the form of small, blood-sucking ticks.
These insects become infected once they’ve fed on mice, squirrels, birds or other small animals carrying the potent burgdorferi bacteria. The bacteria, which can cause Lyme disease, is present in about 20 per cent of black-legged ticks.
Of the 139 found in Alberta last year, one in five tested positive for the bacteria; and that number has health officials on alert.
“People are getting ticks anywhere — their backyards and the river valley. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern we can pick out,” said Daniel Fitzgerald, a laboratory technologist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.
Alberta Health says it’s not yet possible to know if ticks carrying the bacterium linked to Lyme disease are established in Alberta; but they are ramping up surveillance efforts. Under the “submit-a-tick” program, Albertans who find a tick on themselves or on a pet are asked to bring it to either a vet or an Alberta Health Services Environmental Health office.
Alison Glass was bit by a tick in Germany nearly seven years ago. At first she thought it was “a mosquito gone wrong.” A few months later, she says: “I felt like I was ready to die, any minute now.”
A large circular rash on her torso, was just one of the symptoms of Lyme disease she was exhibiting.
Glass says getting treatment for the disease, which still affects her, hasn’t been easy. She hopes the province’s ramped up surveillance will also increase awareness about the condition.
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Lyme disease and ticks
The ailment is named after Lyme, Conn., where the illness was first identified in 1975. It’s a bacteria transmitted through the bites of infected deer ticks, which can be about the size of a poppy seed. Female ticks can grow up to 100 times their original size after feeding on blood, according to Fitzgerald.In 1953, he married Dale See of Hamilton. They had two children, William and Carl. His wife died in 2005, and he later married Lois Rohr, who survives along with his sons.