Sonoma county public health lab tick testing
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The hard ticks comprise roughly 80% of the 900-plus species of ticks described so far. These have significantly different life histories. There are two major families of ticks: the slow-feeding hard ticks (Ixodidae) and the rapid-feeding soft ticks (Argasidae). These county estimates vary slightly due to year-to-year variation in reporting, but the patterns of risk remain similar. For example, the highest average incidence from 2005 to 2014 occurred in the northwestern counties of Trinity (4.5), Humboldt (3.9), and Mendocino (3.9), as well as in the northern Sierra-Nevada counties of Sierra (3.2) and Nevada (2.7). Nonetheless, certain California counties pose a much higher risk of contracting Lyme disease than others. Overall, the incidence of Lyme disease in California is usually only 0.2 cases per 100,000 persons per year. Typical of all disease surveillance systems, the number of Lyme disease cases may be under-reported or misclassified (i.e., disease due to another cause).Īssuming these conditions apply across the United States, it is clear that the incidence of Lyme disease in California is much less than it is in highly endemic areas of the northeastern and upper midwestern United States. The number of confirmed cases reported to state health authorities ranged from 57 to 97 per year between 20. Since 1989, more than 2,600 cases have been documented in California through 2014. Lyme disease was designated a reportable disease in California and the United States in 19, respectively. The first Lyme disease case in California was reported from Sonoma County in 1978. Circumstantial evidence suggests that most persons infected with Borrelia burgdorferi acquire their infections following exposure to nymphs rather than adult ticks.įirst recognized in the United States as an emerging disease in the mid-1970s in Lyme, Connecticut, Lyme disease has been reported in Canada and in many European and Asian countries. The risk of encountering infected nymphs varies spatially within a property and from year to year. In northern California areas where Lyme disease occurs, usually about 1–2% of the adult Ixodes pacificus ticks and 2–15% of the nymphal ticks, on average, are infected with Borrelia burgdorferi. Moreover, it attaches to humans more frequently than any other tick species. This tick has a broad host range and, as of 2007, has been recorded feeding on 108 species of lizards, birds, and mammals within the state. Ixodes pacificus has been reported in 56 out of 58 counties in the state. burgdorferi in eastern North America, but that tick does not occur in California. A closely related tick species, the blacklegged or deer tick (Ixodes scapularis), transmits B. Of the 48 tick species established in California, 6 species attach to humans with some regularity, but only nymphs (an immature tick life-stage) and adult females of the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, transmit Borrelia burgdorferi to people. Lyme disease spirochetes are transmitted to humans and other animals by the feeding activities of certain ticks. Five additional species of Lyme disease-group spirochetes have been described from California, but only one of them, Borrelia bissettii, has been found to occasionally infect people. In the United States, the disease is caused almost exclusively by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, a corkscrew-shaped bacterium. Lyme disease is a potentially serious disease, and can be localized or affect multiple body systems. “Erythema migrans” rash on forearm two weeks after removal of a tick.