To know how to prevent the development of the disease, it is necessary to study the mechanism of its development and the route of infection. The carriers of the infection are animals, mostly rodents -,. feeds on the blood of a sick animal, does not become infected itself, but becomes a spreader.
It is provoked by borreliosis or a certain type of bacteria – borrelia. They are concentrated in the saliva of the arachnid and are in an inactive state. When a person is bitten, the bacteria enters the skin through saliva. Initially they develop there, forming swelling, inflammation, and redness. After some time, they enter the systemic bloodstream and spread throughout the body.
On a note!
Incubation period Tick-borne borreliosis lasts an average of 14 days. Initially, a large spot appears on the skin, up to 60 cm in diameter. And after a couple of days, clear symptoms Lyme disease. During this period, the death of Borrelia begins, in the process they release toxic substances that cause a number of negative consequences.
The danger of tick-borne borreliosis
The first symptoms of Lyme disease are a consequence of toxicosis. Body temperature instantly rises, muscle aches bother you, nausea, vomiting, weakness appear, headache. The clinical picture resembles the flu, but there are specific symptoms– photophobia, lacrimation, souring eyes, limited neck movements, tense facial muscles. The condition returns to normal even without special treatment within a week, further development borreliosis after a tick bite occurs in one of two scenarios:
- the human body produces antibodies, immunity stops the disease;
- bacteria continue to multiply and affect the brain, central nervous system, muscles, internal organs– liver, spleen, heart, kidneys.
In the absence of qualified therapy, borreliosis develops into severe form, difficult to treat. Complications – loss of vision, deafness, osteoporosis, arthrosis, disability, paralysis, dementia, death.
On a note!
The main method of treatment is. Drugs are selected individually in each case; with timely treatment, they stop the development of the disease and eliminate symptoms. The immunity developed is unstable, a person can get sick again the next year. There is no vaccine against borreliosis, so nonspecific methods of prevention must be followed.
Preventing Lyme Disease
Cloth
There is, but it is used mainly by specialists who work in dangerous places - timber harvesters, archaeologists, border guards, agricultural workers. And also fishermen and hunters. Modern suits have traps - pockets, places impregnated with insecticides. Since the cost of overalls is no less than 1,800 rubles, ordinary nature lovers are in no hurry to use them.
On a note!
If you do not have a special suit, you must wear trousers, a long-sleeved jacket, socks, and a hat. Sleeves should be cuffed, trousers tucked into socks. In this case, the tick will not be able to reach the skin and will fall to the ground after a while.
Inspection
Repellents
On a note!
Public prevention of tick-borne borreliosis consists of informing the population about the danger of the disease, the epidemic state of parks, forests, public gardens, and the destruction of rodents - mice, rats. Since there is no vaccine against Lyme disease, non-specific preventive measures are the main method of protection.
What to do after a bite
the vaccine is only against the latter disease. Tick-borne encephalitis – viral infection, when detected, it is administered to activate the immune system, antiviral drugs. To prevent the disease, 3 vaccines are given with an interval of 1 month, 1 year. The effect lasts for 3 years.
The causative agent of infection is spirochetes complex Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato transmitted to a patient after a tick bite.
The infectious agent was first identified in the 80s in the USA, due to a massive outbreak of arthritis in children after visiting Lyme Park. The distribution area of borreliosis currently covers almost the entire temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere. The main natural reservoir of the causative agent of borreliosis are small rodents inhabiting anthropogenic landscapes (primarily forest parks and pastures).
The infectious agent is transferred mites of the kind Ixodes
. In Western Siberia, the vector is the pasture or taiga tick Ixodes persulcatus- the one that is the carrier of another dangerous infection– viral tick-borne encephalitis. In the European part of the country, the main vector is the forest tick Ixodes ricinus.
Borreliosis is one of the most common tick-borne infections in the world
Acute development of infection - fever, fever, headaches and muscle pain - is observed quite rarely. Much more often acute stage is practically absent, and the disease immediately passes into chronic form. Under pressure immune system, Borrelia go into tissues and organs where the activity of the immune system is reduced - nervous tissue, joints, tendons, heart.
One of the main primary symptoms of borreliosis is migratory erythema– redness of the skin around the bite site that expands over time.
Another defense mechanism for Borrelia is a change in the main antigens, which significantly weakens the effectiveness of the humoral immune response. Strains Borrelia burgdorferi, found in different parts range, differ markedly from each other both in antigenic composition and in the symptoms that can be observed during the development of the disease. For example, B.garinii, dominant in the Novosibirsk region, often does not produce clearly defined erythema, which makes it especially difficult symptomatic diagnosis borreliosis in Novosibirsk.
Currently, the disease is divided into three stages
- First stage, local, includes local manifestations and usually lasts up to one month - intense erythema is observed at the site of the initial lesion, a vesicle and necrosis appear. In place of the former erythema, increased pigmentation and peeling of the skin often persists, secondary erythema, rash on the face, urticaria, transient pinpoint and small ring-shaped rashes, and conjunctivitis occur.
- After primary manifestations the disease progresses to second stage associated with the dissemination of the pathogen in various organs and fabrics. In non-erythema forms, the disease often begins with manifestations characteristic of this stage of the disease and is more severe than in patients with erythema. During this period there may be serous meningitis, meningoencephalitis and syndromes of damage to the peripheral nervous system: sensory, predominantly algic syndrome in the form of myalgia, neuralgia, plexalgia, radiculoalgia; amyotrophic syndrome, isolated neuritis facial nerve, mononeuritis. The most common heart lesions are atrioventricular block (I or II degree, sometimes complete), intraventricular conduction disturbances, and rhythm disturbances.
- After 3-6 months, borreliosis becomes third stage, associated with the persistence of infection in any organ or tissue (unlike stage II, it is manifested by predominant damage to any one organ or system). Recurrent oligoarthritis of large joints is typical. Late lesions of the nervous system include encephalomyelitis, spastic paraparesis, ataxia, memory disorders, axonal radiculopathy, and dementia. Polyneuropathy with radicular pain or distal parasthesias is often observed. Patients report headaches, increased fatigue, and hearing loss. Children experience slower growth and sexual development.
THE INFECTION IS NOT TRANSMITTED FROM A SICK TO A HEALTHY PERSON, however, TRANPLACENTAL TRANSMISSION of Borrelia during pregnancy FROM THE MOTHER TO THE FETUS IS POSSIBLE, which may explain the rather high percentage of patients of preschool and primary school age.
Human susceptibility to borrelia is very high, and possibly absolute. Primary infections are characterized by spring-summer seasonality, determined by the period of tick activity. Infection occurs during a visit to the forest, in a number of cities - in forest parks within the city limits; summer residents, outdoor barbecue lovers, mushroom pickers, and tourists are at high risk of infection.
In terms of incidence, this infection occupies one of the first places in our country among all natural focal zoonoses. According to indirect estimates, more than 10 thousand people fall ill with borreliosis in Russia every year. As with other spirochetoses, immunity in Lyme disease is non-sterile. Those who have been ill may have reinfection after 5-7 years.
Manifestations
Over 30 years of careful study of the disease, a fairly good correlation was established between the strain of the pathogen and the pattern of development of chronic infection:
- B.burgdorferi sensu strictо(mainly a North American isolate, but also found in Europe) mainly manifests itself in the form of arthritis;
- B.afzelii(the main European isolate, in Western Siberia it accounts for about 20%) - most often causes skin manifestations, primarily chronic atrophic dermatitis;
- B.garinii(the main Siberian variant of Borrelia) - most often manifests itself in the form of neuroborreliosis (pain along the nerve fibers, perverted sensitivity, paralysis, damage to the central nervous system).
Almost always, chronic borreliosis is accompanied by various autoimmune manifestations. Establishing a diagnosis based on the described symptoms is complicated not only by their diversity and abundance, but also by its strong dependence on individual characteristics patient, as well as cases of combined infections.
Even one tick can infect two strains of Borrelia at once; with multiple bites this happens quite often. Due to the complexity and variability of the clinical picture B.burgdorferi received the epithet among clinical microbiologists "The Great Hoaxer".
Diagnostics
Unfortunately, in Novosibirsk clinics, diagnosing ticks for the presence of Borrelia is the exception rather than the rule. This is primarily due to the lack of certified diagnostic kits for Borrelia antigens. Using PCR tests to determine borreliosis in a patient immediately after a bite is difficult, as it involves taking pieces of skin. Immediately after a bite, there are practically no borrelia in the blood, however, analysis of the presence of borrelia in the blood using PCR reveals the pathogen in 25-30% of cases.
However, currently the only reliable way to diagnose tick-borne borreliosis is linked immunosorbent assay based on the detection of specific immunoglobulins to major antigens Borrelia burgdorferi.
Class “M” immunoglobulins can appear in the patient’s blood within a week (usually 14 days) after infection, IgG - on average after 20-30 days. As the infection progresses, the spectrum of the main antibodies changes, but their overall titer remains high, which makes it possible to establish the presence of the disease with high reliability months and even years after the bite.
Treatment
Like most spirochetes Borrelia burgdorferi sensitive to antibiotics, so treatment with early stages, as a rule, is extremely effective and consists of a short course of antibiotic therapy. At the same time, “old” forms are quite difficult to treat, especially when organic changes begin to develop as a result of borreliosis.
It should be remembered that the earlier treatment is started, the simpler it is, the less required doses antibiotics, the shorter the recommended course of therapy, the more less danger development of the main symptoms of tick-borne borreliosis and its complications. Knowing about the presence of borreliosis infection is in the interests of the patient, therefore, after a tick bite, it is simply necessary to consult with a specialist and, at the appropriate time, analyze the presence of antibodies and DNA of the infectious agent in the blood.
It is important to know!
Specialist consultation on tick-borne infections in Medical Center"Status" will help you respond competently to an encounter with a tick, minimize the risk of borreliosis, or start treatment on time.
All blood tests for diagnosis tick-borne borreliosis (antibodies to Borrelia classes M and G, PCR diagnosis of Borrelia DNA) in MC "Status" You can take it on the direction of your doctor or according to the plan prescribed by a specialist from the Status MC.
And remember:
- Viral encephalitis and tick-borne borreliosis- these are two absolutely various infections, which require separate diagnostics and completely different methods treatment.
- So-called " tick vaccination”, which many wisely give themselves before the tick season, is a vaccination ONLY AGAINST VIRAL ENCEPHALITIS AND DOES NOT PROTECT FROM BORRELIOSIS IN ANY WAY. There are simply no vaccinations against tick-borne borreliosis.
- Immunoglobulin injections, which are given after a tick bite, protect ONLY AGAINST VIRAL ENCEPHALITIS and are absolutely useless in the case of BORRELIOSIS.
- The drugs that are prescribed for the treatment of viral encephalitis (viferon, iodantipirin, etc.) are almost USELESS AGAINST TICK-BORNE BORRELIOSIS.
- The same tick can infect you with ENCEPHALITIS AND BORRELIOSIS AT THE SAME TIME (or even encephalitis and two different strains of borreliosis). Therefore, if an encephalitis virus is found in a tick, this does not mean that borreliosis is absent there.
- According to long-term studies, the infection of ticks with encephalitis in the NSO rarely exceeds 5%, and the infection of ticks with BORRELIOSIS IS ABOUT 30% (in some areas it reaches 60%!).
Vaccines for the prevention of borreliosis in this moment are not produced, so prevention can only be non-specific. And naturally the most effective prevention borreliosis is a protection against ticks.
Tick activity begins at the end of April and ends with the onset of cold weather. The peak of activity occurs in May and June, but tick bites are also possible from April to October, when the soil temperature does not drop below 7-5 0 C. Ticks live in forests, parks, and summer cottages. Most ticks wait for victims on the grass or on the ground. The tick clings to those passing by and searches for a place to bite for several hours.
In Russia, ticks are found in the forest zone from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin.
Ticks that carry tick-borne encephalitis are found in Scandinavia and the countries of eastern and central Europe.
Ticks can live not only in the forest, but virtually anywhere there is grass: in parks, garden plots, cities, lawns, and in the grass along roadsides. Ticks sit on the ground, on grass or on low bushes. Pets can also bring ticks into your home.
To protect yourself from ticks, when visiting areas where ticks may be present, wear closed shoes, pants that fit tightly around the ankle, or tucked into high-top shoes. Wear jackets whose sleeves are fixed and fit tightly to your arms. There are special anti-encephalitis suits. These costumes are made from thick fabric with puffs. They reliably protect against ticks.
Repellents based on DEET (diethyltoluamide) repel ticks, mosquitoes, midges, and horse flies. Apply them to the skin and wash off after visiting the forest. The protection time, method of use and contraindications are indicated on the packaging.
To protect against ticks, clothing is treated with preparations containing acaricides (substances that kill ticks). The acaricide is permethrin or its analogues. After contact with clothing treated with permethrin, the tick dies within a few minutes. Products containing permethrin should not be applied to the skin. Pharmacies now sell various tick repellents containing permethrin. Such drugs protect against ticks for a week or more.
The tick takes a long time to find a place to bite. Therefore, check your clothes and body regularly. It is easier to see ticks on light-colored clothing. Ticks that have not yet had time to attach themselves are small, a few millimeters long. Ticks are classified as arachnids, which is why they have 8 legs (not 6 like insects).
At home, you need to take off your clothes and examine your body. The tick can attach itself anywhere, including on mucous membranes. A shower will wash away any unattached ticks.
Detected ticks should not be crushed with your hands, as this can cause infection.
Inspect pets after walks, comb them thoroughly and wash them. Do not allow pets to sleep on the bed with you. Dogs, cats and any other animals can bring ticks home.
If you frequently visit tick habitats, it is advisable to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis. The vaccine protects for at least 3 years.
If a tick has bitten, it is important to remove it quickly and correctly. The likelihood of transmitting borreliosis increases with the duration of blood sucking. The longer a tick sucks blood, the higher the risk of Borrelia transmission. Do not smear the tick with oil or caustic liquids - this increases the risk of transmitting borreliosis.
Victims of tick bites often ask whether they can remove the tick themselves. Can. There are several ways to remove ticks. But they all differ only in the tool used to remove the tick.
It is most convenient to remove with curved tweezers or a surgical forceps. The tick is captured as close to the proboscis as possible. Then it is gently pulled and at the same time rotated around its axis in a convenient direction. After 1-3 turns, the entire tick is removed along with the proboscis. If you try to pull the tick out, there is a high probability of rupture.
There are now special hooks for removing ticks on the market. This hook looks like a curved two-pronged fork. The plier is inserted between the teeth and also unscrewed. There are other tools for removing ticks from people and animals.
If there are no tools, you can remove it with a loop of coarse thread. The tick is grabbed with a loop as close to the skin as possible and gently, swaying to the sides, pulled out.
Oil treatment will not cause the tick to remove its proboscis. The oil will only kill it by blocking its breathing holes. The oil will cause the tick to regurgitate its contents into the wound, which may increase the risk of infection. Therefore, oil cannot be used.
After removal, the wound is treated with iodine or another skin antiseptic. But there is no need to pour in a lot of iodine, as it can burn the skin.
Hands and tools should be thoroughly washed after removing the tick.
If the head with the proboscis remains in the wound, then there is nothing terrible about it. A proboscis in a wound is no worse than a splinter. If the tick's proboscis sticks out above the surface of the skin, it can be removed by holding it with tweezers and twisting it out. It can also be removed by a surgeon in a clinic. If the proboscis is left, a small abscess appears, and after a while the proboscis comes out.
When removing a tick, you must not:
1. Apply caustic liquids to the bite site - ammonia, gasoline, and others.
2. Burn the tick with a cigarette.
3. Pull the tick sharply - it will break off
4. Picking at the wound with a dirty needle
5. Apply various compresses to the bite site
6. Squeeze the tick with your fingers
The tick must be removed mandatory take it for analysis by placing it in a jar. It is absolutely necessary to do tick tests, because... It may not be possible to understand laboratory or clinically that you have borreliosis immediately, losing time for quick disposal from infection once and for all.
Ticks are analyzed on average for a maximum of 3 days. Even if the laboratory tells you that you are not in an endemic zone, you should insist on analysis, because the number of Borreliosis mites is constantly increasing.
There are also rapid tests for self-checking ticks for borreliosis - Express tick test for borreliosis BOR-K20 .
Prevention of borreliosis with antibiotics can be carried out if the region is endemic for borreliosis.
To prevent borreliosis, doxycycline is usually prescribed in a dose of 200 mg once immediately after, but it is very difficult to laboratory prove the effectiveness of such prevention. Doxycycline should not be used in children or pregnant or breastfeeding women.
Antibiotic prophylaxis does not eliminate the risk of getting sick. Regardless of whether antibiotics were taken or not, you need to monitor your well-being. And if symptoms and erythema appear, you should immediately consult a doctor. If there are no symptoms, you still need to do antibody tests after 6 weeks; if the tests are negative, they need to be repeated after a month and six months. Because Antibodies may appear in the body with a long delay.
Lyme disease got its name from the city of Lyme in Connecticut (USA). There, the pathogen was first isolated - the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which gave the disease a second name. The reservoir of infection is infected birds and mammals. Borrelia is transmitted by ticks of the genus Ixodes - they also transmit tick-borne encephalitis and can transmit both diseases in one bite at the same time.
It is known that Borrelia can be transmitted during pregnancy from mother to fetus. However, no symptoms of Lyme disease have been reported in infants infected before birth.
Tick-borne borreliosis. Is it possible to protect yourself from it?
In the spring and summer months, the risk of contracting tick-borne infections increases sharply. This is one of the myths. In practice, a tick bite is also possible at other times of the year, in the fall. This happened to my friend at the very beginning of September, at a dacha in Finland. On the way home to Russia, he felt “pricks” on inside hips. Having reached the house and inspected the place, he discovered a “sucked” tick.
Let's dispel another misconception. The tick does not rise above one and a half meters (from the ground), so it does not fall from trees onto a person’s head. But there is a high probability of picking it up on clothing from the grass, the ground or a bush branch. When a tick lands on an area of a person’s body that is not covered by clothing, it attaches itself almost immediately.
The second case is when the tick gets caught on outerwear, and then for a long time (days) can crawl onto the human body, is also not uncommon.
Tick attack (bite);
Crushing an infected tick on a person’s body (for example, due to an unsuccessful extraction attempt or by accident);
eating raw (unboiled) cow's or goat's milk.
And yet such situations happen quite often. For example, the cost of ticks removed from medical institutions in St. Petersburg amounts to thousands per year. Often such information can be seen on the website of the SES (Rospotrebnadzor) of the region, along with recommendations for citizens on actions in a specific situation of a tick attack or diagnosing a disease.
Forest and forest clearings; garden plots; roadsides; paths (not only in the forest or park, but also on summer cottage); ravines;
Banks of rivers and reservoirs.
So, if a tick is found on the body, it must be removed. It is advisable to do this without delay in conditions medical institution, emergency rooms (working 24 hours a day in big cities) are also quite suitable, and here’s why: removing a tick yourself risks tearing it, crushing it, or leaving part of it in the wound. All these unpleasant cases can be a harbinger of future health complications.
Of course, there are recommendations on exactly how and with what devices to rotate the tick in order to pull it out of the body. But in this article I would like to bypass them so as not to popularize self-medication. Instead I'll go back to real story, which can teach without teaching: my friend, having examined the bite site, tore out the tick on his own, ineptly, and... left the insect’s proboscis in his body.
According to the rules, the tick is surrendered to medical laboratory, where within several days (the first result is obtained within one day) an analysis for infections (encephalitis and borreliosis) is carried out. Which is what was done. The test result comes back to the medical institution, but you can also get it yourself by contacting the laboratory.
Therefore, if the results of a laboratory test of a tick are negative, you can “breathe easy,” however, even in this case, it is necessary to be observed by an infectious disease doctor (at your place of residence) and independently monitor your condition, since the first symptoms of the disease can appear within up to 21 days, counting from day of the bite.
These symptoms may be: fever, vomiting, headache, joint pain, photophobia, pain in the eyeballs, as well as, in addition to those listed, symptoms characteristic of acute respiratory and viral diseases(runny nose, increased lymph nodes, including in groin area). Self-monitoring of the state of health comes down to monitoring the temperature and examining the bite site.
Most typical sign tick-borne borreliosis, which can be determined visually, is tick-borne erythema at the site of the bite. The redness around the epicenter of the bite may increase in diameter to four or more centimeters; directly at the site of the bite - white coating, around it there is noticeable redness of the skin.
What do they do in this case? Carrying out new laboratory test for a PCR blood test of a person whose diagnosis is assumed and established (to be specified). The result of this analysis (blood sampling directed by an infectious disease specialist can be done free of charge at a medical institution at the place of residence) already allows us to more accurately determine the cause of the deterioration in a person’s health.
This method is justified because in the first case, the tick itself (its body) was examined in the laboratory, and in the second, the blood of the patient who was attacked. The incorrectness of the first analysis depends on a number of factors (late delivery of the tick to the laboratory, its unsuitability for research, random risks), and a more accurate result of a blood test, which medical professionals recommend to carry out in case of obvious deterioration in health and no earlier than two weeks after the bite, also indicates whether there were bites from other ticks that could not subsequently be detected on the body.
Immunologists claim that the vast majority - 80% of those who fall ill - are citizens who have not been vaccinated with the vaccine. However, all information messages and medical “leaflets” deliberately or accidentally hide the fact that the effect of the vaccination against tick-borne encephalitis (which is given in three doses) does not apply to carriers of borreliosis infection. Thus, confirmed in consultation with medical workers This fact indicates that there is no vaccine against borreliosis.
And at the same time this dangerous disease, however, does not lead to fatal outcome, has serious consequences for the human body, in particular its nervous system and ability to work. Advanced cases of tick-borne borreliosis quite realistically lead to disability. Borreliosis is treated on an outpatient basis - with the help of therapy that involves the antibiotic doxycycline. Of course, everything diagnostic procedures and treatment is prescribed only by a certified doctor of a medical institution.
Be healthy and do not skimp on vaccinations against tick-borne encephalitis. But remember that there are no vaccinations against tick-borne borreliosis in Russia. Tags: insect bite, vaccinations, diseases, tick, health
Symptoms of borreliosis
The incubation period for Lyme disease ranges from 3 to 32 days. One of the first signs is a ring-shaped redness at the site of the bite (erythema migrans annulare). It gradually increases in size, the patient may experience pain and itching in this area, general weakness, and headache. The temperature rises.
In the absence of treatment, from the 4-5th week of the disease, vomiting, increased light and sound sensitivity develop, symptoms of damage to the nervous system appear: para- and tetraparesis (impaired ability to move the arms and legs normally), paresis of the facial nerves (the patient loses the ability to control muscles faces: speech becomes slurred, has problems chewing, cannot close his eyes, etc.). The pathogen also affects the heart muscle and joints. A person experiences pain in the eyes - iritis or iridocyclitis may develop.
For more late stages diseases, pain and swelling in the joints are accompanied by memory and speech disorders, visual and hearing impairment, pain in the hands and feet. The skin may develop acrodermatitis atrophicus in the form of blue-red spots on the extremities. The spots merge and become inflamed. The skin at the site of the spots atrophies and becomes like tissue paper.
To diagnose borreliosis, a search for borrelia is carried out PCR method in the blood, skin, cerebrospinal fluid and joint fluid. According to their own external manifestations Lyme disease is similar to allergic dermatitis, tick-borne encephalitis (and it is very important to accurately establish the absence of tick-borne encephalitis virus in the blood), with cardiomyopathy and a number of systemic diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, Reiter's disease), etc.
Is there a vaccine against borreliosis? Vaccinations for everyone. sovetylechenija.ru
1. There are a lot of tick-borne infections. In addition to encephalitis and borreliosis, which are more or less well-known, there are also babesiosis, rickettsiosis, granucytic anaplasmosis, monocytic ehrlichiosis, etc. You get all this happiness as soon as a tick bites you - the pathogens of all this nasty stuff live in its saliva. But not every tick, and not a complete set.
2. Encephalitis. In an excellent situation, you will get away with a slight fright; in a good situation, you will die. But most likely you will be paralyzed. Most likely hands, or one of them. This is forever and cannot be repaired. In addition, you may become blind and/or deaf.
Keep in mind the following: if you are bitten by a tick in European regions, it will most likely be okay. In our country, ticks are not particularly infected - according to various sources, from a few percent to a few tenths of a percent, and 2 out of 1000 people die from tick-borne encephalitis. But this does not mean that you will be lucky.
If you were bitten by a tick in Siberia or the Far East, everything is much sadder. You may get Far Eastern encephalitis, and 80 out of 100 people who get sick die from it. Perhaps this figure would be somewhat lower if it weren’t for the level of funding for medicine and the “ease” of getting to hospitals in these parts, but even taking these factors into account, it is frightening.
3. Borreliosis. It all starts with a high temperature and red rings at the site of the bite (scientifically called erythema). Then our beloved paralysis, only this time the problems were not with the hands, but with the face. Then problems with the joints (for example, severe pain in them, to such an extent that it is impossible to move), with the heart, vision, hearing. Then the skin becomes thinner, becomes dry like parchment paper, and develops bluish spots. In general, there are many problems, and yet they are all different.
4. What to do before you get bitten: vaccination against encephalitis. It’s too late to do it right now, but if you remember about it next February, you’ll be just in time for the season to do it. Keep in mind that it is a three-stage procedure - they will prick three times, at a certain interval. If you have already had encephalitis, then you have lifelong immunity. Well, or if you get sick again, you will be a new word in medicine. Vaccination is considered the most effective thing you can think of.
It is impossible to vaccinate against borreliosis. Again, even if you've already had it, there's nothing stopping you from getting it again.
5. What to do if you are bitten. First, carefully pull out the tick either using a loop of thread or using oil to make it easier for the tick's head to come out. If you do tear off the head, now pick it out like a splinter with a needle. Don't forget to ignite the needle in the flame of a lighter.
Secondly, we put the tick in a jar, a bottle, or, in short, anywhere, just to take it to the laboratory. We don’t crush ticks.
Third, we submit the tick for analysis to the SES. If the tick turns out to be sick, this does not mean that you are 100% sick. But as a preventative measure, they will feed you pills.
Fourth - 10 days after the bite, they donate blood for borreliosis and encephalitis. Research method - PCR. After 2 weeks - for immunoglobulins M for encephalitis, after 3 weeks - for immunoglobulins M for borreliosis. In general, ideally, the doctor should tell you all this, but ideal is not always the case. With the test results (positive), we go to the doctor. And let’s not delay the hike. The same borreliosis can be treated very well if treated in the early stages.
Ticks don't jump from trees at you. They don't jump at all. They crawl out of the grass or from bushes (the tick usually does not rise above 1–1.5 m on a bush).
If you have encephalitis/borreliosis, it is not contagious to others - you can sneeze on them as much as you want. But if you have encephalitis and are a nursing mother, there is a chance you can pass it on to your baby through your milk. By the way, you can get encephalitis by drinking cow and goat milk(unboiled).
7. There are tick-borne infections that are not as terrible as encephalitis with borreliosis, and they were discovered only a couple of decades ago. Accordingly, not every laboratory will test you for them. So, if after a tick bite the results for borreliosis with encephalitis are negative, but you have been lying in the hospital for the second month with fever, pain throughout the body, diarrhea and a diagnosis of “ARVI in question” - look for a good infectious disease specialist.
Borreliosis, or Lyme disease, is transmitted by Ixodid ticks and is a serious infectious disease. The disease affects nervous system, skin, heart, musculoskeletal system. Great importance has the prevention of borreliosis. since any disease, especially one that has severe consequences, it is better to prevent than to treat.
Unlike encephalitis, for which vaccination is the main preventative measure in high-risk areas, there is no vaccine against Lyme disease. The carrier of these two diseases is the same - ixodid ticks, so sometimes a mixed infection is observed.
Cases of borreliosis occur on all continents (with the exception of Antarctica). In Russia, many regions are considered endemic, that is, cases of the disease are constantly recorded in these areas. The existence of a vaccine against borreliosis could significantly reduce the incidence rate in dangerous regions.
Prevention of infections transmitted through tick bites
In connection with the restoration of warm weather, there is a seasonal increase in the number and activity of ticks, which, when sucking blood, can transmit pathogens of various infectious diseases. Tick-borne viral encephalitis and tick-borne borreliosis are the most common diseases that can be acquired from a tick bite.
In nature, many ixodid ticks passively lie in wait for their hosts, localizing themselves in places where an encounter with a host is most likely. They are usually located near the paths along which animals move, at the ends of branches and leaves of bushes. Some species make active searching movements.
Hungry active ticks climb plants (most often to a height of up to 1 m from the ground) and take a lying in wait position; they attack a moving animal or a passing person, clinging to his clothing. This can happen both during the day and at night, and not only in clear, but also in rainy weather. Therefore, when going to the forest, try
Dress in light, plain clothes, on which ticks can be easily spotted. Clothing should cover the surface of the body as much as possible; it is advisable to wear a shirt with cuffs and tuck it into trousers, and trousers into socks. It is recommended to wear closed shoes.
The effectiveness of protection increases many times over when clothing is treated with special aerosols. chemicals– acaricidal (kills ticks), repellent (repels ticks) or acaricidal-repellent (repels and kills at the same time). Be sure to read the instructions for the product!
Self- and mutual inspections to detect ticks should be carried out every 15-20 minutes.
Attacked ticks usually crawl upward and try to get under clothing. They can attach to any part of the body, but most often ticks stick to the neck, in the folds of skin in the waist area, in hairy parts body, in the groin area. From the moment of attack by ticks until they are sucked on, it usually takes about 1-2 hours.
After visiting the forest, you should carefully inspect your clothes, remove ticks, if any, and be sure to wash them, which will remove ticks from the seams and folds of clothing.
Ticks attack not only directly in the forest. If they remain on clothes or things, they can be sucked on on the way out of the forest, in transport, or already at home, when people’s attention and alertness weaken. There are frequent cases of ticks sticking to sleeping people, and the attached ticks are usually not detected for a long time.
The moment of tick attachment (bite) is not always felt. This is due to both the different individual sensitivity of people and the location of the bite. In general, a tick bite is insensitive and often goes unnoticed. On the 2-3rd day, in most cases, redness appears on the surface of the body around the attached tick and painful sensations(local reaction to the bite).
Attached ticks are usually discovered during this period. Fully engorged individuals disappear on their own. When removing a tick or scratching the bite site, people can also become infected with TBE (tick-borne encephalitis) as a result of rubbing the infectious agent into the skin with saliva or tick tissue.
If there were pets in the forest, they also need to be thoroughly examined to prevent ticks from being brought into the house.
Migrant ticks: in Russia it is easier to become infected with borreliosis than with encephalitis.
© Illustration by RIA Novosti. Alina Polyanina, Depositphotos / Erik_Karits
Every year in Russia several thousand cases of borreliosis infection are registered. This infection, like encephalitis, is carried by forest ticks. There is no vaccine against it. What causes the disease and why it is dangerous - in the material of RIA Novosti.
The causative agent of borreliosis is the spirochete-related bacterium Borrelia, which lives in the body of common forest ticks of the ixodid family. They do not cause any trouble to arthropods, but the immunity of mammals is powerless against them. Having attached itself to the skin of a person or animal, the tick injects saliva to numb the bite site. With it, microbes penetrate into the blood.
If a domestic goat or cow is infected with borreliosis, the infection can enter the human body through raw milk.
From chills to disability
The first symptoms are heat, chills, weakness, muscle aches - appear on the fifth to seventh day after infection. The bite site swells, and a pink or bluish rash forms on the skin - erythema. However, sometimes at this stage the disease is practically asymptomatic. According to a recent study, pathogenic bacteria have learned to trick our immune system by producing a protein that suppresses the body's initial immune response.
The disease can be stopped if you consult a doctor in time and take a course of antibiotics. Otherwise, it goes into the second phase: borrelia spread through the blood and lymph throughout the body and affect the brain. Fever and rash alternate neurological symptoms: headache, numbness of the extremities, inflammation of the trigeminal or facial nerve, meningitis and meningoencephalitis are common. After two to three months, borreliosis reaches the joints, causing infectious arthritis, which is fraught with disability.
© Tina Carvalho, University of Hawaii at Manoa
The causative agent of borreliosis is Borrelia burgdorferi. One of three pathogenic bacteria of this genus.
Prevention instead of vaccination
Doctors first noticed borreliosis in 1975 in the USA, in the city of Lyme. Hence the second name of the infection - Lyme disease. Just a few years ago in Russia it was considered exotic. In Moscow, the first case of infection was recorded only in 1985 at the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N. F. Gamaleya.
In the last 15-20 years, due to climate change and human economic activity, tick vectors have been migrating to Russia from Asia. Moscow and the Moscow region are suffering the most. According to Rospotrebnadzor, in the capital region, borreliosis accounts for up to 58% of all infections transmitted by ticks. Last year, 862 cases of Lyme disease were registered in Moscow.
In the country as a whole, people become infected with borreliosis three times more often than with viral tick-borne encephalitis. In 2017, 6,717 Russians (4.59 per 100 thousand population) fell ill with borreliosis from the bite of forest ticks, and 1,943 people (1.33 per 100 thousand) fell ill with tick-borne encephalitis.
Thanks to mass vaccination in places increased risk, the incidence of tick-borne encephalitis can be contained. According to Rospotrebnadzor, in 2017 alone, 2.7 million Russians were vaccinated against encephalitis. By April 6, this figure exceeded 700 thousand people. There is no vaccine against borreliosis in the world yet, although attempts have been made to develop and use it.
First recombinant vaccine against borreliosis "Lymrix" (LYMErix), created in 1998 in the USA, contained the Osp A protein isolated from the shell of the causative bacteria. Once in human blood, it provoked the production of antibodies capable of destroying Borrelia. The vaccine showed its effectiveness in 76% of adults and 100% of children (in total clinical trials ten thousand people took part). However, Limrix was too expensive and some patients complained of side effects, so the vaccine was not widely used and was discontinued in 2002.
© Photo : Penalver et al. / Nature Communications 2017
Scientists have found a Dracula mite trapped in amber 100 million years ago
In 2016, scientists from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (USA) announced the creation of a vaccine against borreliosis that does not cause unwanted side effects. The drug "Lymprep" (Lyme PReP), containing specific antibodies to the causative bacteria, is now being tested on animals, but even if everything goes well, it will not be publicly available earlier than in five to seven years. Therefore, for now the emphasis is on prevention.
Scientists warn that ten to twenty percent of ticks carry Borrelia, so when going outdoors, wear closed clothing with elastic cuffs, preferably light colors (they are easier to see), and use repellents. After long walks in the forest or park, be sure to check yourself for ticks. Having discovered a bloodsucker, you need to submit it for analysis to an epidemiological laboratory, even if there are no signs of illness.
Cifox - exterminatorixodid (encephalitis) ticks, bedbugs, cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, ants and other harmful insects!
