Our guest speaker today was Wakefield Rotary Club President Chris Van Hemelrijck who led us through a fact filled tour of Tick borne diseases. The slide presentation began with the importance of “knowing your enemy” as the first line of defense about how to recognize and avoid the very stealthy tick.
Knowledge about habitat, life cycles and hosts were reviewed with an emphasis on the 3 most common ticks in our geographic area: the deer (black legged), lone star and dog (wood) tick. Each can transmit a variety of bacteria, parasites and viruses and there is some overlap in the diseases that ticks carry. Some are evolving, such as Powassan virus, Borrelia myamotoi (a Lyme variant) and alpha-gal syndrome, in part due to climate change and habitat encroachment.
Being first in the state is not always desirable as Chris presented data that shows Washington County has the highest rate of Lyme disease (3 times the average) in RI! The good news is that medical providers have a heightened awareness of important signs, symptoms and lab tests that help make the right diagnosis. This still leaves areas of uncertainty due to the difficulty of weighing uncertainty when overlapping symptoms and false positive/false negative results requires careful interpretation. This unfortunately has led to controversy about the term “chronic Lyme disease” which often leads to unproven and sometimes harmful treatment regimens.
Chris concluded with a review of preventive measures that are simple and effective in preventing and avoiding tick encounters.
