TBE and Lyme Disease How to Protect Yourself in the Ticks Year 2018

There are so many ticks this summer: how to protect yourself

This year, there are a particularly large number of ticks and thus a higher risk of becoming infected with dangerous pathogens. But there are several ways to protect yourself from infectious diseases such as Lyme disease or tick-borne encephalitis (TBE).

Higher risk of infection

Health experts repeatedly point out the importance of protecting yourself from ticks. The small bloodsuckers can transmit various diseases such as Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). This summer there are a particularly large number of ticks and thus a higher risk of becoming infected with dangerous pathogens. The German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) assumes that 2018 will even become a veritable "tick year". In a statement, the experts explain that not only the temperatures but also beech nuts have an effect on how much the crabs multiply.

This year there are especially many ticks and thus a higher risk of getting TBE or Lyme disease - because these diseases are transmitted through the small bloodsucker. (Image: emer / fotolia.com)

Main transmitter of dangerous diseases

A summer walk through the forest or through the garden can have unpleasant consequences.

On bushes, shrubs and grasses sit ticks, usually the common wood buck, Ixodes ricinus, who patiently waits for a vertebrate, for example a human, to come by and take it with him.

If he has found his place on the skin, then he stings and sucks blood until it almost bursts. However, with his saliva, he returns some of the blood, and in some cases along with unpleasant cargo.

Thus, the common woodblock is the main transmitter of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), a viral meningitis that can be fatal. Only recently, experts reported that such infections continued to increase.

The Lyme disease is transmitted by this species of ticks.

High risk this year

While there is no cure but preventive vaccination for the FSME, there is no vaccine for Lyme disease, but a treatment option with antibiotics.

In any case, it is advisable to pay attention to ticks, especially in TBE risk areas. There, more ticks are infected with viruses than anywhere else. In which regions of Germany this is the case, one learns on the website of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI): FSME card.

"Overall, the risk is particularly high this year," said Privatdozent Dr. Gerhard Dobler: "We will have the highest number of ticks in the last ten years."

Since 2009, the DZIF scientist and his team at the Institute of Microbiology of the German Armed Forces have been researching the spread and activity of the TBE virus in Germany.

Over a period of nine years, the researchers documented the number of ticks at a source of infection in southern Germany.

For this purpose, they meticulously collected the nymphs of the common woodblock every month - a stage of development of the ticks before growing up. Less than a millimeter, these juveniles are only recognizable as black dots and are often overlooked.

This makes them particularly dangerous because even at this stage of development, they can transmit diseases. The scientists were able to show that the selected source of infection in southern Germany has a model character.

"If we have many ticks here, then we have these high numbers elsewhere in southern Germany," said Dobler.

Comprehensive predictive model confirmed

"Using tick data from our model cooker and specific environmental parameters, colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna were able to develop a model that will prepare us for the ticks in the summer," says Dobler.

On the one hand, the number of beechnuts two years before the current summer, as well as the average annual temperature and the winter temperature in the year before, are included in the Munich and Vienna models.

The more beechnuts there are two years before the summer in question, the more game and rodents have food and serve as carriers of the ticks, which then also appear more frequently.

Dobler and colleagues were able to successfully use the connections in their complex model and confirm them already.

For the summer of 2017, they had predicted 187 ticks per standardized area and found 180. Almost a point landing. For 2018, the highest number of ticks ever found was predicted with 443 ticks and Dobler now knows that this prediction will also be met exactly.

"We have the highest number of ticks we have collected since the beginning of the investigations - good for the ticks, bad for us."

Prevent the risk of infection

More ticks always means a higher risk of getting sick. Lyme disease can be transmitted by ticks throughout Germany and can be found in about every fourth tick - regardless of the region.

Here, only vigilance for forest walks and outdoor stays helps to prevent it.

To protect themselves, experts recommend common mosquito repellents containing the ingredients DEET or Icaridin. These make humans as prey uninteresting.

In addition, long clothing should be worn, for example, during walks or walks through tall grasses.

The faster the tick is removed, the lower the risk of Lyme disease.

"The risk of becoming infected with borreliosis in a tick bite is significantly influenced by the duration of the tick's intake," Dr. Frieder Schaumburg from the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the University Hospital Münster (Münster University Hospital) in a communication.

Remove ticks correctly

It will take up to 24 hours for the Lyme disease agents to be transmitted to humans. "Therefore, after an outdoor day, you should thoroughly check up on ticks to minimize the risk of infection," says the doctor.

"In the case of a tick bite, you should grab the tick with a fine pair of tweezers as close to the mouth and pull it vertically upwards," said Schaumburg.

He strongly advises against turning or warming up. Instead, the wound should be disinfected and observed.

Vaccination against TBE

To prevent the danger of meningitis, one can and should be vaccinated, so the appeal of the DZIF scientists.

Especially in southern Germany, where the density of virus-infected ticks is higher.

According to health experts, the vaccination against TBE should take place in good time before the early summer, as time has to pass between the three vaccination dates. In addition, a higher sensitivity for the danger is needed. (Ad)