Alert - tick borne disease (Powassan virus) found in infected ticks

[ThreeWs]

Coming to an area near you? Forwarded to me from a friend - Note: 1st article reports Powassan virus can be passed on to you in 15 minutes after the tick attaches. Infection from the more familiar bacterial agents (Borrelia burgdorferi) known as Lyme disease is reported to take 2 hours. There are other identified tick born bacterial agents.

In heavily infected tick areas my friend has reported hundreds of ticks crawling up pant legs on a short walk.

Ticks don't recognize borders so reports of Powassan virus carrying ticks in the US and mostly in the Northeast means my good Canadian friends need to be on the look out. In a world of widespread travel it is likely many threats such as tick born diseases will spread from one continent to another.

wcvb.com/article/tick-bite-...

bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/...

WWW

[Jm954 Administrator]

It's worth noting that ticks and Lyme disease (just one of the infections transmitted) are becoming more common in the UK.

Helpful advice for UK residents here: lymediseaseaction.org.uk/ab... and also here: bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazi...