Get ready for a whole lot more Lyme disease in the Northeast. according to : grist

Not to mention that, with spring coming to the Northeast earlier and earlier every year, Lyme season just got longer. An explosion of mice in the Hudson River Valley last summer suggests to ecologists that this year will see a matching explosion of Lyme disease. Mice are ideal transmitters of Lyme disease. But another culprit has been stealthily transmitting the disease, NPR reports, leading to infection rates three times higher today than they were in the early 1990s: mice. Turns out mice thrive in the chunks of forest padding the roads and farms of New England and the East Coast.




An explosion in the mice population across the northeastern United States is a worrying sign of a potentially similar-sized surge in cases of Lyme disease. But people get Lyme disease from ticks, not mice, right? Deer are often blamed for being carriers of Lyme disease, infecting the ticks who feed on them, who then jump on to human hosts. Once found primarily in the New England (the disease is named for Lyme, Connecticut), and a slice of Wisconsin, Lyme is now found all over the United States. Two biologists told NPR that they have found in mice a leading indicator of future Lyme outbreaks: the bigger the annual mouse population, the larger the following year's pool of new Lyme cases will be.

Lyme disease cases predicted to rise

In Cass County, there were no cases in 2000, but there's been a steady rise, with 14 cases in 2015. The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. have more than doubled since 2001, most likely due to tick migration. Mosquito repellent should also be used to fend off ticks. "I think avoiding bushy, leafy wooded areas as well as staying on the center of the trail, then you could be reducing your risk for tick exposure," said Dr. Michael Corbett, an infectious disease physician. Doctors say being aware when you're outside is key.



collected by :Lucy William

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