On Long Island, every season has become tick season.
Scientists and medical experts say the warm winters have helped keep ticks unusually active year-round. That means more bites and more chances to be infected with diseases the tiny creatures carry.
Doctors also are still trying to unravel the impact of lone star ticks, which appear to be gaining ground across the region. Even though they don’t carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, they carry other pathogens that cause health problems.
Dr. Luis Marcos, an infectious disease expert with Stony Brook Medicine, said he and his colleagues have seen patients in March and early April with “tons of tick bites.”
WHAT TO KNOW
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Experts say the threat of being bitten by a tick and possibly contracting a tick-borne disease can happen all year long due to warmer weather and other factors.
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The lone star tick appears to be more plentiful in Suffolk County, edging out deer ticks.
- While lone star ticks don’t carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease, being bitten by one can cause an itchy rash and other, more serious health issues.
While most of them were identified as bites from lone star ticks, they also have had cases of Lyme disease, as well as anaplasmosis, another tick-borne disease with symptoms that include fever, headache, chills and muscle aches.
Both Lyme disease and anaplasmosis are carried by deer ticks, also known as blacklegged ticks.
“All these things we are used to seeing in late May, June, July,” Marcos said. “Now for about the last two years we are seeing more tick cases in April. This is not what we are used to seeing.”
A deer tick makes its way around a petri dish at a Stony Brook University lab this month.
Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Entomologist Scott Campbell said Long Islanders should be taking precautions against tick bites all year long.
“In the spring, we have different species active, and that’s when people are more active outdoors,” said…
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