The season for black-legged ticks that typically carry lyme disease is closing, but it’s larvae season for another tick, whose bite could lead to a severe red-meat allergy.
A lone-star tick bite doesn’t guarantee the onset of Alpha-Gal Syndrome. If it does, it can take 4 to 6 weeks to appear with varying levels of severity, and can be life threatening. And as of this year, it’s reportable to the CDC.
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control tick biologist Ashley Kennedy says ticks have to feed three times to reach adulthood, and each feeding stage makes them more dangerous as they are exposed to more blood pathogens in hosts.
But the issue with studying Alpha-Gal syndrome is that it’s not a disease, and there is no way to test to see if the tick could induce the allergy.
“It'd be like someone saying, ‘can you test this lobster to see if I'm allergic to shellfish?’" Kennedy said. "You know, it's like, it has more to do with the patient than the tick.”
She adds symptoms can range from an upset stomach, to anaphylactic shock, and possibly death.
“And what separates it from a lot of other food associated allergies is that it's not instantaneous. The symptoms will emerge during the digestive process, which can be anything from like a few hours later, to maybe eight hours later. So if someone winds up in the ER at 2 a.m. the doctor might not think to ask them, ‘well what did you eat for dinner last night?”
Kennedy conducts tick surveillance year round for DNREC, sweeping for them in wildlife reserves and state parks with a process called “dragging,” in which a white flag is dragged across vegetation where ticks are "questing," or seeking a host. The ticks will grab onto the flag as it goes by and can then be easily seen and collected.
Ticks are preserved in ethanol, and classified by species, sex and life stage before heading to a molecular biology laboratory at Delaware Technical Community College to test for disease pathogens.
“Some good news is if this tiny stage bites you, you're not at risk for disease transmission, because if you're the first meal they've ever taken, they haven't had any previous exposure to a pathogen in the host blood," Kennedy said. "So, you know, a larval bite could still give you an itchy irritating bite, but it's not going to transmit a disease agent.”
Tick season is never truly over, however. Ticks are active year-round, and with an increasingly warming planet, tick habitats are expanding. 50 years ago, the Lone-Star tick was scarce in Delaware, but they’re now the most common here.
"For us, 96% of the ticks we collect are Lone-Star ticks," Kennedy said. "And people haven't done as much research on how to control them. They have a different enough life history and different host preferences compared to black legged ticks that you can't just use the same methodology."
Tactics for controlling black-legged ticks involve getting tick repellants on rodents, a common host for the lyme-disease carrying insect. But Lone-Star ticks feed on deer, turkeys, and of course, humans, but baiting larger animals to lure them to insecticide rollers can be considered a form of wildlife feeding, which is banned in some areas to avoid unnecessary aggregating.
Kennedy notes that more tick-borne illnesses are popping up in larger numbers in neighboring states too, including Powassan virus.
"It's a virus, so there's not really effective treatment for it," she said. "You can try and relieve the symptoms, but we don't have an antiviral developed to fight it. And then the other scary thing is it can be transmitted very quickly. So, you might have heard a tick has to be attached for about 24 hours or 36 hours to make you sick. But the Powassan virus changes the rules because it can be transmitted within 15 minutes of attachment."
Kennedy says thorough body checks for ticks after being outdoors can be life-saving. Preventative measures include bug spray, protective clothing, and avoiding tall vegetation where ticks typically quest. This includes staying in the middle of walking trails.
