Rule rights tick plague in 2018 ticks number is currently increasing rapidly

A veritable year of ticks is in progress

The last winter was rather mild, the spring too warm and the summer also shows from the warmest side. As a result, ticks and other pests multiply rapidly. For this reason, experts suggest alarm: 2018 should become a veritable tick year. "There will be more cases of meningitis or Lyme disease," warns, for example, the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).

This summer there will be a particularly large number of ticks and thus a higher risk of getting meningitis or Lyme disease - because these diseases are transmitted by ticks. DZIF scientists in Munich forecast a "tick year". They have developed a model that will allow them to predict the density of ticks already in winter for the coming summer.

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. The Lyme disease is transmitted by this species of ticks. 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: FSME map.

"Overall, the risk is particularly high this year," says Privatdozent Dr. med. Gerhard Dobler sure. "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 are 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," explains Dobler.

Comprehensive predictive model confirmed

"Using the tick data from our model stove and certain environmental parameters, the 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," explains 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. The faster the tick is removed, the lower the risk of Lyme disease. To prevent the danger of meningitis, one can and should be vaccinated, so the appeal of the scientists. Especially in southern Germany, where the density of virus-infected ticks is higher.

Tick ​​dressed in silk

Collecting and mapping ticks is one thing. But the Munich team always comes across finds that go back far in history. At least one of these exciting discoveries from recent times should be mentioned here: The finding of a tick that has caught in a spider web and was covered to death by the spider silk. This drama happened about 100 million years ago. And was included and recorded for posterity in amber. (pm, sb)