Environment-Here And There

Here (New Hampshire)-Lyme Disease

As I was reading Lyme Disease Heat Stress, Extreme Weather Expected To Increase, I became more interested in learning about Lyme disease. I think one of the reasons I became interested in Lyme disease is because my dad is battling it. Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that you get when an infected tick bites you. When you get Lyme disease you might get a bulls-eye rash around the bite that the tick left. Some of the early symptoms are headaches, fevers, joint aches, and brain fog. In 2017, the 956 confirmed cases in New Hampshire, represented one of the highest rates per population density in the United States.

The rising temperatures are causing ticks to live for longer periods which can expose animals and humans to a longer yearly tick season. The rising temperatures are not just affecting humans, it's also affecting deer and dogs, and killing moose populations in New Hampshire. The moose in New Hampshire is experiencing a high volume of blood loss, they try to get the ticks off of themselves instead of eating, they lose their fat so they get too thin and they scrape off a lot of their fur trying to remove the ticks.

The second stage of Lyme disease is what my dad has. We call this neurological Lyme Disease. Neurological Lyme Disease is the second stage of Lyme that either was not detected at the beginning or was not treated fully. People who have Neurological Lyme Disease can have nerve damage in their arms and legs, irritability, poor memory, concentration, and poor sleep. Early testing for Lyme is not always accurate. It shows as negative when later it shows up as positive.

Some ways that you can prevent yourself from getting Lyme disease is, you should check yourself for ticks after spending time in the woods, take off a tick as quickly as possible with tweezers so it does not bite you, use insect repellent and tick proof your yard. There are vaccines available for dogs currently but none for humans. Some labs are testing vaccines to possibly work with humans in the future. So we need to stop climate change before we all get Lyme disease.

There (Italy)-Lyme Disease

In the Northwestern region of Italy, scientists have studied the bacteria in ticks which are called Borrelia. This is a different type of bacteria that causes Lyme in Italy compared to North America.   In Italy, people who have Lyme disease get central nervous system issues such as confusion.People who live in the Italian Peninsula are in danger of being attacked by many tick species. There are 40 species of ticks in Italy. Hard ticks are the most common ticks. They cause tick-borne diseases that can spread to wild animals and domestic animals in Italy. The ticks in Italy are found to have bacteria in their saliva instead of in their gut.Lyme disease was identified for 3 workers who were at danger for a tick bite. In Italy, 24 cases of Lyme disease were recorded in the last year. Eighteen percent of ticks looked at from three areas showed positive for Lyme disease borreliae.

                                                               (Krasemann)       
In Italy, the temperature has risen due to climate change so the ticks go into different regions and infect more people with Lyme disease. The climate change is not just affecting the tick population, it's also making glaciers in the Italian Alps melt, severe flooding and violent storms have been occurring more often. Scientists say that the Italian Alps could lose up to 80% of their glacier cover by the end of the century, when summer temperatures go up by 3 degrees Celsius. If temperatures rise up by 5 degrees Celsius, the Alps will be mostly ice-free by 2100. This shows that Italy and the global community needs to work to stop climate change so that they can have a healthier country, by not having warm temperatures this causes the ticks to live for longer.




Works Cited:

Buchner, Jill. Lyme Disease and Beyond:5 Ways Ticks Make You Sick. Reader's Digest Canada, www.readersdigest.ca/health/conditions/tick-borne-diseases/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Caruso, Catherine. "Tests For Lyme Disease Miss Many Early Cases-But A New Approach Could Help." STAT, 28 June 2017, www.statnews.com/2017/06/28/early-lyme-tests/.

Dubail, Jean. "Here Are the Biting Ticks in NH, Number of Lyme Cases." Patch, 8 Apr. 2019, patch.com/new-hampshire/concord-nh/here-are-biting-ticks-nh-number-lyme-cases. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Kanter, Rob. "Moose, Winter Ticks, and Climate Change In New Hampshire." Environmental Almanac, 27 July 2017, will.illinois.edu/environmentalalmanac/program/moose-winter-ticks-and-climate-change-in-new-hampshire. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

"Lyme Borreliosis,Po River Valley,Italy." Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, Aug. 2010, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/8/10-0152_article. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.

"Lyme Disease-Symptoms And Causes." Mayo Clinic, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lyme-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20374651. Accessed Matthews, L. "Lyme Disease In Italy." LymeDiseaseGuide.org, 20 Oct. 2014, lymediseaseguide.net/lyme-disease-in-italy. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.