NEWS

Creepy critters: It's still prime season on Cape Cod for ticks and the diseases they carry

Cynthia McCormick
Cape Cod Times

By late November mosquitoes may be gone, but ticks are still lurking and still hungry.

Barnstable County entomologist Larry Dapsis, tick project coordinator with the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, said he’s been getting an unusual number of calls about tick bites for this time of year. He said people need to take precautions against tick bites whenever the weather is above freezing.

“This is gorgeous tick weather. We have no snow cover and we have temperatures every single day that are in the 40s to low 50s,” he said.

Dapsis said ticks “will be up on vegetation questing,” which means waiting for a blood meal to pass by.

Farrah Monahan, outside her Pocasset home, was diagnosed with the tick-borne disease babesia in October 2020. Tick experts warn that ticks can still be active this time of year.

“I get calls from people all the time, even during cold months like February and March. Compared to years past, my phone has never been so busy.”

Dapsis blamed the pandemic for increased exposure to ticks.

“A lot of people are still working remotely," he said. "They want to take a break to avoid cabin fever and they go out for walks. The ticks are waiting for them.”

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People also get exposed to ticks cleaning up autumn leaves and clearing debris from last month’s “bomb cyclone” nor’easter on the Cape, he said. “People are outside, dealing with all that stuff..”

Leaves “provide harborage for the ticks,” Dapsis said.

He said he got a call recently from a woman who went to the emergency room to have a tick removed. It was on her eyelid.

Deer ticks and Lyme disease

If there is any good news, it’s that the deer ticks that cause Lyme and other diseases are in their adult stage now and a little easier to spot than the nymphs that emerge in May and June and cause the majority of human illness, Dapsis said.

Nymph-stage ticks are the size of a poppy seed. “You just don’t see it,” which is why the majority of cases of tick-borne disease are reported in the summer, Dapsis said. 

He said adult-stage deer ticks are more like a sesame seed in size.

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The bad news is that the slightly larger adult deer ticks are more likely to carry the pathogens that cause disease. 

“In our surveillance of the adult stage ticks on the Cape, an average of 50% are infected with the Lyme bug; 15% are infected with babesia; 15% with anaplasma; and 3% with miyamotoi,” also known as relapsing fever, Dapsis said.

He said it’s important that people spending time outside check for ticks and remove them promptly.

About 10% of adult ticks are infected with more than one pathogen, Dapsis said.

Other tick-borne diseases

While Lyme disease is the most prolific of the four tick-borne diseases that Dapsis cites, there were 88 cases of babesia, also known as babesiosis, on the Cape through late September.

It’s particularly harmful to people age 50 and those who are immunosuppressed or have comorbidities, said Dr. Dani Hackner, physician-in-chief for medicine at Southcoast Health.

Hackner said Southcoast hospitals admitted 26 patients this summer with babesia.  “That is quite a lot of babesia.”

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The disease is malarial-like in that it infects cells and causes them to break down, resulting in falling red blood cell counts, Hackner said.

In severe cases of the potentially deadly illness, people need blood transfusions.

“It’s just worth reminding folks to take precautions,” Hackner said. “We’re in that tick crescent extending all the way up from Connecticut out to Cape Cod.”

Farrah Monahan, of Pocasset, who was diagnosed with babesia in October 2020, said children are her biggest concern when it comes to tick exposure.

“Definitely check your kids,” Monahan said. “Just be mindful of it. (Ticks) are out. It’s possible for these things to get on your body and be unaware of it.”

Monahan said her daughter got a tick on her neck in February or March.

Her husband removed the tick and they sent it to the UMass Amherst laboratory of microbiologist Stephen Rich to be tested for disease.

The tick tested positive for the pathogen carrying Lyme, Monahan said.

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The lab service, known as Tickreport.com, had been subsidized for several years in the Cape region by Cape Cod Healthcare and the state Department of Public Health, which reduced the cost from $50 to $15 per report, Dapsis said.

The grants that subsidized the cost ran out just before the pandemic and have not been restored, Dapsis said.

He said it currently costs $50 to test for the pathogens that cause Lyme, babesia, anaplasmosis and miyamotoi.

For most people it’s worth the cost to find out whether a tick that bit a family member is carrying one or more pathogens, Dapsis said.

“We’ve seen some tick reports that had ticks carrying all four pathogens,” he said. 

“And that doesn’t even count Powassan virus,” a tick-borne disease that is present on Cape Cod but not included in the $50 lab report, Dapsis said.

How to prevent tick bites

The best way to avoid tick-borne diseases is to prevent ticks from latching on by following several steps, Dapsis said.

The first is to wear clothing treated with an insecticide known as permethrin.

Dousing shoes, socks and pants is important for hikers and walkers but people picking up leaves and outdoor debris will want clothing treated from head to toe, Dapsis said.

He has a series of 10-minute videos at capecodextension.org/ticks that includes instructions for spraying clothing and other prevention techniques such as protecting bare skin with a product containing DEET or other repellents.

He also advises doing tick checks and putting clothing worn outdoors in the dryer for 20 minutes to kill any ticks that may have crept onto the clothing.

Any ticks that have latched onto people or animals should be removed with pointy tweezers as soon as possible, Dapsis said.

Consider getting the tick tested at Tickreport.com, he said.

Pet owners should talk to their veterinarian about proper protection for their animals.

Anyone who find ticks on them are also invited to email or call him at any time, Dapsis said. He can be reached at Ldapsis@barnstablecounty.org or 508-375-6642.

“I’m always open for business. I field calls in the evenings. I field calls on the weekends. It’s important.

“I tell people it’s always tick season.”