Russian scientists have revealed who ticks prefer to bite. Hungry and very dangerous: who is actually bitten by ticks Which people are most often bitten by ticks
Adult representatives have a fused head and chest and 8 legs, like spiders. There are more than 50 thousand species of them in the world. In our regions, they prefer to live on animals and in deciduous forests; they are especially fond of hazel, that is, hazel. The female lays more than a thousand eggs at a time, then the larvae grow and move to the nymph stage, then become adults.
Why do ticks bite humans?
Biting species include ixodidae, gamasaceae, argasaceae and velvet (red calf). Most of them successfully transmit pathogens of various infectious diseases to people and animals. Diseases may vary depending on where they live and the type.
There are some ticks that have switched to constantly feeding on just one type of animal. Some do not attack people at all, others use this method when there is no main donor, and some prefer humans. Mostly females bite in order to lay eggs. Blood also becomes their diet for transformation into larvae.
How to get a tick
If the “insidious” animal still latches on, what should you do, how to properly remove the tick? The individual attaches itself to the body and only then attaches itself, which takes some time. Blood is also not absorbed at lightning speed, but only after 2 hours or even several days. It attaches imperceptibly to humans. A well-fed pest becomes round and gray.
Removing a tick that has attached itself must be urgent and careful. You need to protect his abdomen from damage and make sure that the blood he drank does not leak out. After this, the hands and the bite site must be treated with a solution containing alcohol. Most often this is done with vodka, cologne, a damp disinfectant wipe, iodine or a solution of brilliant green.
The best solution in nature, it can become a thread pulled out of clothing. A loop is made from it and placed around the proboscis, very close to the skin. Then they tighten it and tear it off with gentle rocking movements. But it is not always possible to use thread. How to remove a tick from a person in other ways? You can get it out with your fingernails, or ordinary two matches can come to the rescue. Having pulled out the individual, you need to place it in a bag, then tie the neck. This is necessary to submit the pest to a laboratory to check the degree of its infectivity.
But it is better to consult a doctor, who will not only remove the tick, but also give a referral to a laboratory to check it. You need to seek the help of a specialist as soon as possible, do not go to your clinic, but go to the nearest trauma center.
Signs of a bite appear after 2-3 hours:
- weakness and drowsiness appear;
- chills occur;
- bothered by aches in the joints;
- manifestations of photophobia are possible.
- headache;
- nausea and vomiting;
- difficult, hoarse breathing;
- nervous manifestations, hallucinations, etc.
A red inflammation forms at the site of suction small sizes. The spot has a slightly different appearance when the bite was made by a Borrelosis carrier. It has a circle with a diameter of 10-60 cm. A small red elevation in the shape of a donut is formed in it. The spot in the center becomes bluish or white. The framing is taken with a crust, a kind of scar is obtained, which disappears after two weeks.
Tick protection
Fighting ticks is one of the ways to protect a person and his home from them. The worst thing is the bite of an encephalitis carrier. Any representative of this species found in humans - ixodid or bed bug - can become infected with an unpleasant disease. Therefore, there is no single rule regarding what protection against ticks should be. People often use different means that can be used to treat clothes. Among them are karbofos (0.5% emulsion), Lysol (5-10% solution) and turpentine (5% emulsion).
Chemicals
- Ultraton - lotion, aerosol;
- DEFI-Taiga - solution, pencil, lotion, emulsion, aerosol, balm, cream, gel;
as well as aerosols:
- Biban;
- Gall-RET;
- DEET for ticks;
- Off extreme;
- Raptor;
- Breeze-anti-mite, etc.
Experts recommend using another tick repellent - acaricides. If repellents repel arachnids, then the last drug paralyzes their limbs, and they fall from the victim. In this way, the individuals are destroyed. There are aerosol acaricides:
- Raftamid-taiga;
- Anti-mite picnic;
- Fumitox-anti-mite;
- Gardex aerosol extreme;
- Tornado anti-mite;
- Gardex anti-mite, etc.
There are also acaricide chalks that are used to draw lines before going for a walk in a field or woodland. But treatment against ticks is important not only for humans; its help is also necessary environment. There are often cases of plant infection in gardens. Therefore, treating an area from arthropods becomes an important task for people.
They are fought with the following drugs: Actofit, Vermitek, Fitoverm, Karbofos, Intavir and others. They will require repeated treatments, since not all stages of animal development are susceptible to them. To do this, you will need to develop a pollination schedule for the plant. Usually a gap of two weeks is made, but you should pay attention to the included instructions. She will tell you more exact dates.
Prevention
Man's caution and forethought - best protection from ticks. These qualities require knowledge of the pests’ habitat and avoidance of possible encounters with them. Wetlands, pastures and thicket, park areas are the favorite places of ixodid species. After all, they prefer damp and shaded places.
To avoid encounters with the Argas species, you need to travel less through caves, rocky crevices, grottoes, close to animal and bird dwellings, and old buildings for keeping livestock. When you have to stay in such an area, you need to use a sleeping bag with a special valve at night, put a protective canopy on your tent, and if you sleep on a bed, place containers with kerosene or water at the feet.
- You need to ensure your safety by wearing the right clothing, pre-treated with repellent;
- It is better to choose not a repellent, but a destroying drug;
- when applying products, use circular movements of a closing shape;
- treat your neck, wrists, knees, ankles if you are wearing open clothing;
- The validity period of the funds is reduced under the influence of weather conditions such as rain, wind, heat.
Ticks need blood to reproduce and grow. He feeds only three times in his life. But how!
Both males and females bite people (and other mammals that fall under the “hot paw”). But females can hang on their prey for 3 to 10 days, and males only have a snack and go looking for feeding females to mate with them. Considering the global task of reproduction facing the female, she needs to drink hundreds of times more blood than herself.
A fertilized female, engorged with blood, lays approximately a thousand eggs towards the end of the spring season, that is, in May-June. In mid-summer, tiny larvae with three pairs of legs emerge from them. Their target is small birds and forest animals. Such a tick-biting little thing doesn’t even consider people as victims.
The following spring, the nymphs begin hunting for hedgehogs, hares, squirrels and other mammals. The man is still too big for them. The nymph, engorged with blood, becomes a male or female, only to retire again and go on another hunt a year later. So, a tick that bites a person is no longer a young, inexperienced arthropod.
Biting species include ixodidae, gamasaceae, argasaceae and velvet (red calf). Most of them successfully transmit pathogens of various infectious diseases to people and animals. Diseases may vary depending on where they live and the type.
There are some ticks that have switched to constantly feeding on just one type of animal. Some do not attack people at all, others use this method when there is no main donor, and some prefer humans. Mostly females bite in order to lay eggs. Blood also becomes their diet for transformation into larvae.
How does a tick bite occur?
A tick bite is an event honed to perfection by evolution. The female needs a huge volume of blood compared to herself. This means that she needs to cling tightly enough to stay on the victim for several days. She also needs that the animal or person does not feel the bite, and that after a few days of feeding the victim’s body does not react to an attack from the outside.
All these problems are solved with the help of the salivary glands, which occupy a significant part of the tick’s body. His saliva is a unique mixture of more than 30 biologically active substances. The very first portion contains a special “cement secretion”, with the help of which the tick “sticks” to the skin. When bitten, painkillers immediately enter the wound, so the victim does not feel that he has been eaten. In addition, saliva contains:
- compounds that suppress the immune response of the victim's body so that a rejection reaction does not occur;
- substances that prevent blood from clotting;
- substances to increase the permeability of blood vessel walls.
The tick feeds by either injecting saliva into the wound, or sucking out the resulting product - a mixture of blood, lymph, saliva and the remains of destroyed tissue.
If an arthropod is infected with tick-borne encephalitis, then almost half of the viruses in its body are located in the salivary glands. That is why, when you find a tick, you need to remove it immediately. You can’t wait for him to eat and fall off on his own, or go with him, dangling on his skin, to a distant hospital.
Every minute while the infected tick hangs on its victim, more and more new portions of the virus enter the body. And this increases the risk of developing the disease. And for the same reason, you should not crush a tick between your fingers - the virus can penetrate inside through microdamages on the skin. When pulling out a tick with your fingers, you should not immediately rub your eyes and other mucous membranes with them - for the same reason: there is a risk of introducing a virus.
Even if the tick had just attached itself (and this can be seen from its emaciated body) and was immediately removed, it should be remembered that the cementing substance remained in the human skin, and with it viruses or bacteria that could be in the arthropod’s saliva. And this also explains the need to carefully twist the tick so as not to tear off its head. If the head remains in the human body, it will still be a source of infection.
Do not drown a tick in alcohol, oil or other liquids. Firstly, this is a completely meaningless action - he will not come out to see who is pouring oil on him. Secondly, there is a high probability that he will inject an additional portion of saliva into the skin - with infection, of course.
Ticks have a special organ, the hypostome, which allows them to cling to humans. It functions as a sensory organ, as well as attachment and blood sucking. Most often they stick to areas of the body such as the groin, abdomen, chest, armpits, neck and ears. The bitten areas become inflamed and local symptoms appear. allergic reactions.
Signs of a bite appear after 2-3 hours:
- weakness and drowsiness appear;
- chills occur;
- bothered by aches in the joints;
- manifestations of photophobia are possible.
- headache;
- nausea and vomiting;
- difficult, hoarse breathing;
- nervous manifestations, hallucinations, etc.
A small red inflammation forms at the site of suction. The spot has a slightly different appearance when the bite was made by a Borrelosis carrier. It has a circle with a diameter of 10-60 cm. A small red elevation in the shape of a donut is formed in it. The spot in the center becomes bluish or white. The framing is taken with a crust, a kind of scar is obtained, which disappears after two weeks.
How to get a tick
If the “insidious” animal still latches on, what should you do, how to properly remove the tick? The individual attaches itself to the body and only then attaches itself, which takes some time. Blood is also not absorbed at lightning speed, but only after 2 hours or even several days. It attaches imperceptibly to humans. A well-fed pest becomes round and gray.
Removing a tick that has attached itself must be urgent and careful. You need to protect his abdomen from damage and make sure that the blood he drank does not leak out. After this, the hands and the bite site must be treated with a solution containing alcohol. Most often this is done with vodka, cologne, a damp disinfectant wipe, iodine or a solution of brilliant green.
The best solution in nature may be a thread pulled from clothing. A loop is made from it and placed around the proboscis, very close to the skin. Then they tighten it and tear it off with gentle rocking movements. But it is not always possible to use thread. How to remove a tick from a person in other ways?
But it is better to consult a doctor, who will not only remove the tick, but also give a referral to a laboratory to check it. You need to seek the help of a specialist as soon as possible, do not go to your clinic, but go to the nearest trauma center.
How to avoid picking up a tick in the forest?
Ticks are leisurely creatures that do not have wings or other devices for quickly attacking a victim. Therefore, all they can do is sit on bushes and grass, waving their outstretched front legs in the hope of a prey passing or running past. Their goal is to grab onto the wool or clothing and begin their upward journey in search of best place for a bite.
In principle, ticks are able to sense animal and human trails - by the smell of sweat in the air. And the sucked ticks fall from the animal running along the path, and, without crawling far from this place, they continue their life cycle. In a month, such a tick can move no more than 5-10 meters from the place where it fell from the victim.
Modern means protection against ticks is not effective enough to guarantee the integrity of the body of a person walking in the bushes. How the drug is more effective, the more poisonous it is. Therefore, the most effective products are not applied to the skin - only to clothes. But their effect lasts literally for 3-4 hours, provided the weather is dry. If the walk takes place in the rain or is accompanied by crossing rivers in ankle-deep water, then the product must be reapplied.
Therefore, the most reliable means of protection against ticks in the forest is clothing. Best option- Clothing with cuffs that can be tightened or tight elastic bands that fit close to the body at the wrists and ankles.
One more characteristic feature anti-tick clothing - trap folds: stitched protrusions of fabric directed downwards. In Russia, ticks do not climb higher than 1 meter on grass and bushes (and do not jump onto their heads from trees!). This means that by clinging to clothing at knee level, for example, they will crawl upward to reach the body. Having stumbled upon a trap fold, the tick will remain there.
How not to miss a tick on your body?
Even if a person is dressed in the right clothes and doused with the most toxic drug, there is no guarantee that the tick will not reach his body. And in this case, the most important thing is to find it as quickly as possible.
A person does not notice the tick bite itself. Moreover, surveys show that half of people who contract a tick-borne infection and go to the doctor cannot remember ever encountering a tick. So don’t neglect easy-to-follow advice. All of them have been tested by life and have a logical basis.
- Choose light-colored clothes.
On light clothes The attached ticks are clearly visible. Since they cannot bite through fabric, there is no need to be afraid of them - just remove them from clothing.
- Carry out regular inspections.
The tick is not a gadfly with its powerful jaws that pierce the skin of a bull. And not even a mosquito, whose motto is “Bite anywhere, before they swat you!” The tick, as mentioned above, at the moment of the bite is firmly glued to the skin. Therefore, he is in no hurry to dig into the victim’s body, but can crawl over a person’s body for 2-3 hours, choosing a gentler place.
This means that if we are talking about a walk in the park or in the forest, then the surest means of prevention is to examine each other every 2-3 hours. During the examination, special attention should be paid to the secluded corners of the body - under the knees, in the groin area, under the arms, behind the ears, under the hair and in the waist area (stomach and back).
Upon arrival home, you need to inspect not only yourself and your loved ones, but also the animals that were also on a walk, as well as your car, backpacks and tents - everything that has been in the tick-infested area. The tick will not die on the spot if it does not receive blood immediately - it can wait another year on an empty stomach for an opportunity. So, having, for example, reached home on a backpack, he may well set off in search of prey already in the apartment.
- Take a shower after your walk.
Immediately after the walk, if possible, you should take a shower or bath - this makes it possible to either wash off or quickly detect the tick if it has already attached itself.
Tick protection
Fighting ticks is one of the ways to protect a person and his home from them. The worst thing is the bite of an encephalitis carrier. Any representative of this species found in humans - ixodid or bed bug - can become infected with an unpleasant disease. Therefore, there is no single rule regarding what protection against ticks should be.
Chemicals
- Ultraton – lotion, aerosol;
- DEFI-Taiga – solution, pencil, lotion, emulsion, aerosol, balm, cream, gel;
as well as aerosols:
- Biban;
- Gall-RET;
- DEET for ticks;
- Off extreme;
- Raptor;
- Breeze-anti-mite, etc.
Experts recommend using another tick repellent – acaricides. If repellents repel arachnids, then the last drug paralyzes their limbs, and they fall from the victim. In this way, the individuals are destroyed. There are aerosol acaricides:
- Raftamid-taiga;
- Anti-mite picnic;
- Fumitox-anti-mite;
- Gardex aerosol extreme;
- Tornado anti-mite;
- Gardex anti-mite, etc.
There are also acaricide chalks that are used to draw lines before going for a walk in a field or woodland. But treatment against ticks is important not only for humans, its help is also necessary for the environment. There are often cases of plant infection in gardens. Therefore, treating an area from arthropods becomes an important task for people.
They are fought with the following drugs: Actofit, Vermitek, Fitoverm, Karbofos, Intavir and others. They will require repeated treatments, since not all stages of animal development are susceptible to them. To do this, you will need to develop a pollination schedule for the plant. Usually a gap of two weeks is made, but you should pay attention to the included instructions. She will give you more precise dates.
Tick removal devices
Of course, it is advisable to have someone nearby who has already successfully pulled out ticks. You can also twist a loop of thread, use tweezers from a manicure set, but the easiest way is to get one of the many mite removal devices that can now be bought at a pharmacy or online store.
Main principle when removing a tick: hook it and make 2-3 turns, smoothly and without jerking. The goal is to carefully unscrew the cemented head of the tick from the skin without tearing it off. Clockwise or counter-clockwise - it doesn't matter.
Prevention
Human caution and foresight are the best protection against ticks. These qualities require knowledge of the pests’ habitat and avoidance of possible encounters with them. Wetlands, pastures and thicket, park areas are the favorite places of ixodid species. After all, they prefer damp and shaded places.
To avoid encounters with the Argas species, you need to travel less through caves, rocky crevices, grottoes, close to animal and bird dwellings, and old buildings for keeping livestock. When you have to stay in such an area, you need to use a sleeping bag with a special valve at night, put a protective canopy on your tent, and if you sleep on a bed, place containers with kerosene or water at the feet.
- You need to ensure your safety by wearing the right clothing, pre-treated with repellent;
- It is better to choose not a repellent, but a destroying drug;
- when applying products, use circular movements of a closing shape;
- treat your neck, wrists, knees, ankles if you are wearing open clothing;
- The validity period of the funds is reduced under the influence of weather conditions such as rain, wind, heat.
This work, which began more than a year ago, already has intermediate results, which were shared with the MK correspondent by the head of the department of gene pools of experimental animals at the institute, Mikhail MOSHKIN.
The fact that people differ in the frequency with which they are attacked by ticks is a fact, says Mikhail Pavlovich. - Someone noticed that the stronger sex is bitten more often. But is this true? What makes ticks divide us into “tasty” and “untasty”, what recommendations should be given to their potential victims?
“The lady creates a signal field for the tick”
Scientists began selecting traits by simply dividing humanity into two large categories - men and women. How can a tick tell them apart? Of course, by the smell of the sex pheromones released.
Mikhail Moshkin and his colleagues conducted a special experiment. In the laboratory, ticks were placed in a Y-shaped maze with arms in the form glass tubes. Odor stimuli (human pheromones) were supplied to one sleeve, water vapor to the other, and a combination of water and stimulus to the third.
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The researchers' subjects were taiga ticks (Ixodes persulcatus), which are the most common not only in Siberia, but also here in the Moscow region. It was important for scientists to understand which substance the mites would spend the most time in the tube with. It turned out that they left the territory with the male odor (steroid pheromone - osmopherone) very quickly, but in the tube with the female pheromone - osmopherone, these harmful arthropods lingered for a long time.
-Were these males?
Of course not,” Moshkin grins. - The smell of osmopherine, which is a mixture of three aliphatic fatty acids, turned out to be attractive to both male and female ticks. This smell does not seem sexually attractive to them, as it would, for example, to human males. It's the same as if a male mouse were drawn to the scent of a female tiger. You understand that this is impossible. Here a different mechanism acted on the ticks - they were attracted, rather, from the nutritional side, fatty acids, which are part of the female pheromone, since they form an odor characteristic of many species of animals - the natural hosts of ticks.
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■ When ticks are infected with the causative agent of Lyme disease, their search activity increases. The spirochetes that cause this disease require much more resources to survive than viruses tick-borne encephalitis. Perhaps this is why the tick strives to get food as early as possible, which it takes no more than once a year.
■ The pathogenicity of tick-borne encephalitis decreases from east to west: while in Primorye you can die from an encephalitis tick bite, in the Moscow region a tick-borne disease can occur as a mild illness.
“To understand the tick’s preferences, they opened up its brain”
But the question arises, why then does popular rumor call a man the main victim of a tick? Why is their first “blow” not directed at women? The fact is that ticks use odor signals to select the place in which they lie in wait for the object of attack. The stimulus for the attack is the thermal radiation of the potential victim, exhaled carbon dioxide, ammonia and some other signaling factors characteristic of both men and women. Is that the intensity of these signals is higher in males. Thus, women walking through the forest create a signal field that attracts ticks. The victims of such attraction are more often males, who have a higher metabolic rate.
If you study the distribution of ticks in the forest, then most often they can be found along those paths along which people walk and dogs run.
The differential attractiveness of male and female pheromones established in the Y-maze has been supported by neuronal response studies.
To do this, the covering of the ticks over the nerve ganglion (a collection of nerve cells - author) was opened and electrodes were applied to it. Various odors were applied to the tick's olfactory organ, which is located on the front legs. And depending on the change of “favorite” and “unloved” inhaled samples, the electrical potential changed radically. For example, when inhaling repellents it increased, and when inhaling female pheromones it decreased.
“Tick-borne encephalitis may be sexually transmitted”
But the most interesting and important discovery, according to Doctor of Biological Sciences Moshkin, was recently described by his group in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine.
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We infected male laboratory mice with the tick-borne encephalitis virus,” says Mikhail Pavlovich. “Then healthy females were placed in cages with the infected ones. When their offspring were born, we studied them at the embryonic level. Embryos grew much slower than their counterparts born from healthy fathers; many simply did not survive. And when we carried out a virological analysis, it turned out that the subjects were infected with tick-borne encephalitis. Before us, no one put forward the version that encephalitis is inherited, and therefore also sexually. But, unfortunately, the doctors did not hear us. Go to any clinic now and ask the first patient who sought help after a tick bite, did the doctor recommend that they abstain from sexual intercourse for at least two weeks after the bite? I bet they don’t give such instructions, but they should. Our version is supported by the fact that there are patients with an identified virus who do not remember that they were ever bitten by a tick. In such cases, doctors believe more in the absolutely fantastic version that patients could have become infected from a tick that simply crawled over them without attaching itself.
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Myth one: Ticks live only in forests and groves and attack from trees
This is a misconception. Firstly, in addition to the taiga tick, which lives in forests or on the border with forests, there is also the Pavlovsky tick - it is able to survive in dead wood and on the edges. The tick Dermacentor reticulatus (meadow tick) also lives in dry landscapes and fields, said Nina Tikunova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, head of the laboratory of molecular microbiology at the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine of the SB RAS. Regarding last type, then it is larger, moves quickly and bites painfully, it is extremely rare to be a carrier of encephalitis and borreliosis, but is still capable of infecting, Tikunova noted. Ticks can also end up in the city center if they are carried by dogs (taiga tick) or birds (Pavlovsky tick).
However, ticks never attack from trees, they do not climb trees at all, Nina Tikunova knows: “The taiga tick feeds (feeds - Z.K.) on large mammals (elk, roe deer), so it needs to climb higher on the blade of grass - to 50–80 cm. And the Pavlovsky tick sticks mainly to rodents, hedgehogs, birds - it can also live in short grass, including trimmed lawns.”
Myth two: Ticks prefer people wearing white clothes
This is a myth. He came from where ticks are more noticeable on white clothes. However, ticks are simply not able to choose a victim based on the color of clothing - they do not have eyes, explained senior researcher at the zoomonitoring laboratory of the Institute of Animal Systematics and Ecology of the SB RAS, Candidate of Biological Sciences Natalya Livanova. In the surrounding world, ticks navigate mainly through touch and smell. Studies have shown that ticks are able to smell a victim at a distance of up to 20 m - and crawl in its direction.
Myth three: Ticks prefer to bite people with a certain blood type
This myth is based on popular observations: supposedly some people are bitten by ticks often and with pleasure, while others who were with them are bypassed. There have been no studies confirming the taste preferences of ticks depending on their blood type, Nina Tikunova clarified.
Myth four: Ticks don't like to bite drunk people
“You shouldn’t wishful thinking,” noted Nina Tikunova, adding that no research has been conducted to confirm this fact. However, this misconception can be dangerous: after all, when drunk, a person loses vigilance, forgets to examine himself and can fall asleep with an arthropod attached without noticing it.
Myth five: The tick always crawls only upward
There is an opinion that ticks can only crawl upward; they have no way back. Based on this assumption, even traps have been created that are placed on clothing: overhanging folds that are placed on the waist, legs and arms - the tick crawls up and gets stuck in them, because it supposedly cannot crawl down.
Myth six: Only female ticks bite and can infect
This is not true. In some warning brochures there is incorrect information that supposedly only females can attach themselves to the victim, and even signs are given by which they can be distinguished - they are larger. Individuals of different sexes have differences in feeding strategies, said Natalya Livanova: females need to attach themselves to the prey for long term, up to 3–4 days, because in order for eggs to form in the body, protein is needed. Males only attach themselves for about 25 minutes to replenish moisture reserves. However, it is they who turn out to be more dangerous: their oral apparatus not as powerful as that of females, so it can dine and fall off without even being noticed. However, both females and males can be carriers of encephalitis and borreliosis equally, Livanova said.
Myth seventh: A tick crawling on the skin can infect you even before it bites.
It is the male ticks that are mainly “to blame” for the emergence of such a myth, explains Natalya Livanova. The fact is that they stick painlessly and for a short time, so a person may not notice either a bite or a tick, and then get sick, believing that he was just crawling on it. The causative agent of the virus can enter the body either through damaged skin or through mucous membranes. The tick can indeed secrete saliva even before suction, but it is dangerous only when interacting with wounds, cracks and mucous membranes.
Myth eight: A tick can hide on clothing and then attack a person in a dream
Myth nine: There were no ticks in the USSR, and then they were brought here by foreign enemies, perhaps the Japanese
“This assumption is a very big compliment to foreign researchers,” notes Natalya Livanova. She explained that to artificially breed such a virus, scientists would have to maintain natural conditions for the tick population in laboratory conditions for several generations. And this is practically unrealistic, she believes: firstly, already the second generation of laboratory arthropods is losing aggressiveness towards humans, and secondly, if such studies were carried out, it would be necessary to infect people with encephalitis, since only humans suffer from this disease. Neither moose, nor roe deer, nor birds with rodents or dogs suffer from encephalitis, the scientist notes.
The ticks themselves have always been there: they even fed on dinosaurs, Livanova said. As for viral encephalitis, its first studies were undertaken in the 30s of the last century in connection with the development Far East, since it was then that immigrants from Central Russia people began to get sick en masse. By the way, it was then that Russian scientists isolated the tick-borne encephalitis virus, and at that time scientists were not able to create a new virus in any country in the world.
Myth tenth: Repellents - reliable protection against ticks
No. Repellents are one of the last places among measures to protect against crawling and tick bites, notes Tatyana Burmistrova, head of the neuroinfections department of the city infectious diseases clinical hospital No. 1. Chemicals contained in repellents have a repellent effect. They mask the human odor that attracts ticks. However, firstly, you cannot spray with a guarantee of 100% coverage, and secondly, the substances are volatile and evaporate quickly. In addition, it is important to remember that products for application to clothing and skin are different products, so it is important to carefully read the instructions before use.
Other chemicals are used to treat the areas of children's camps, etc. - they do not repel newly arrived ticks, but destroy existing ones. Previously, dust (DDT) was used for these purposes and gave good results, recalls Tatyana Burmistrova.
Myth eleventh: Vaccination against tick-borne encephalitis solves all problems
Vaccination is the most effective protection against encephalitis, but it does not protect against tick bites. “There is no need to relax, because a tick can be a carrier of other diseases, for example tick-borne borreliosis, for which there is currently no vaccine,” answers Natalya Yatsyk, an infectious disease specialist at the Medpraktika clinic. Do not forget, by the way, that these diseases are treated with different drugs: an injection of immunoglobulin for borreliosis is useless, since this infection is treated with antibiotics.
Myth twelve: The closer the tick is attached to the head, the faster the disease will develop, and if the tick is removed immediately, infection can be avoided
This is incorrect, Natalya Yatsyk answers: “The incoming tick-borne encephalitis virus spreads hematogenously (i.e. through the bloodstream) throughout the body. Infection through the digestive, gastrointestinal tract when receiving raw milk from goats and cows infected with tick-borne encephalitis virus. Unfortunately, even if the tick bite was short-lived, the risk of contracting tick-borne infections cannot be ruled out.”
Myth thirteenth: If you find a tick attached to your body, you need to fill it with sunflower oil- and it will fall off on its own
This is a wrong strategy, following which you can only waste time. Because the tick needs to be removed as soon as possible. You need to put a loop of strong thread around the attached tick and pull it out with careful rotating movements, trying not to tear off the proboscis immersed in the skin. If any part of the tick remains in the wound, it must be removed like an ordinary splinter. Treat the wound with iodine. The tick itself should be placed in a container with a tight lid to be taken to the laboratory to be tested for tick-borne infections, recalls Natalya Yatsyk.
Zinaida Kuznetsova
Photo depositphotos.com
