Tick-borne diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever can be dangerous if not deadly. Experts have usually suggested that an infected tick needs to be attached for several hours before the disease-causing microbe is transmitted to the host. A new study from Brazil shows that ticks may be quicker to pass along their germs than anyone thought, however.
In an experiment, the Brazilian scientists exposed guinea pigs to infected ticks and found that the rickettsia of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever appeared in the animals within just 10 minutes of the tick attaching.
The dog ticks that are generally responsible for this disease in the US have not been studied in a similar experiment, but it would be foolish to assume that it takes a long time for the germs to pass from tick to human. There is currently no evidence suggesting that the Borrelia of Lyme disease are transmitted more quickly than the 24 hours currently ascribed to them.
[Emerging Infectious Disease, online Aug. 13, 2014]
For more information on ticks and the variety of infections they can cause, you may wish to listen to our hour-long interview with Ed Breitschwerdt, DVM, of North Carolina State University, and B. Robert Mozayeni, MD, of Galaxy Diagnostics.
6/17/19 redirected to: https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/how-can-you-prevent-tick-bites/
