Material updated ↓
A popular opinion is that if a person is bitten by a tick, they should not throw it away, but take it to the laboratory for testing to determine whether the animal was infectious. We decided to check if this is true.
Every year during the tick season on social networks flare up discussions about whether an arthropod that has bitten a person should be taken to the laboratory. Recommendations be sure to submit the tick for testing; they are often placed on websites medical organizations, especially those that themselves provide similar services. Such adviсe can also be found in interviews with doctors in Media and on information portals. However, other institutions claimwhat to do for a tick that has bitten not necessary.
During outdoor recreation in the warm season, insect bites are not uncommon. You may also encounter with pincers (they do not belong to insects - they are arthropods and arachnids). Their bites painless, therefore, it is often not possible to detect an attached tick immediately and it can feed on the blood of its victim for up to several days. Most of these creatures themselves are not poisonous, but they can be carriers of dangerous pathogens — viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc. There are more than 10,000 species of ticks, but from a medical point of view, the superfamily poses the greatest threat ixodid ticks, individual species of which usually carry different infections. Most common Tick-borne diseases in Europe and North America are tick-borne encephalitis and borreliosis (Lyme disease). However, others may also occur in different regions of the world: for example, in Russia - Q fever, tularemia and North Asian tick-borne rickettsiosis, in USA - babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
When a tick bites, it must be carefully removed so as not to tear off the proboscis, which would otherwise remain in the wound. Rospotrebnadzor recommends go to the emergency room, where doctors will help remove the tick. If this is not possible, you should grab the arthropod with tweezers or fingers wrapped in clean gauze as close to its oral apparatus as possible and, holding it strictly perpendicular to the surface of the bite, rotate the tick’s body around its axis, and then remove it from the skin. After this, it is necessary to disinfect the bite site. The compilers of the authoritative medical reference book MSD are extremely not recommended Use alcohol, nail polish, Vaseline, burning matches and other folk remedies to remove the tick - this can cause the animal to dig into the skin even more strongly.
Rospotrebnadzor strongly advises submitting ticks removed from your body to specialized laboratories. For example, in Moscow such a study conducts State Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology - its specialists test samples for infections of tick-borne encephalitis, borreliosis, monocytic ehrlichiosis and human granulocytic anaplasmosis within two to three days. Probably, the conditions and list of infections for which ticks are tested depend on the specific laboratory.
One of the most dangerous and common diseases that can be transmitted through a tick bite is the virus tick-borne encephalitis. Often the infected body copes with the pathogen on its own, and the person does not show any symptoms. However, if the immune system is unable to overcome the virus, a fever may begin, and subsequently inflammation of the brain, as well as the membranes of the brain and/or spinal cord, may develop. Specific treatment of tick-borne encephalitis virus doesn't exist, therefore, as in the case of viral colds, the patient is recommended to rest, drink plenty of fluids and, if necessary, painkillers. Since encephalitis is often severe, a person may require hospitalization, but even then doctors will deal with the symptoms (for example, providing breathing support or stopping swelling of the brain), and not with the virus itself. Therefore, knowing that the bitten tick was a carrier of encephalitis will not provide any benefits in treatment.
In Russia, as a post-exposure prophylaxis measure apply injections of immunoglobulin, but today no data about clinical studies that would convincingly confirm the effectiveness of this method. In addition, there are suspicions that in some cases immunoglobulin can only worsen the course of the disease, which is why it has ceased to be used in many countries. Since tick-borne encephalitis is a viral infection, prophylactic use of any antibiotics is useless, because they are ineffective against viruses. The most effective means of prevention is considered vaccination.
Regarding borreliosis, then there are no vaccinations against it. Flow The disease begins with a severe rash and fever, however, if treatment is not started in a timely manner, after a few months the patient may develop facial paralysis, arthritis, heart rhythm disturbances and other problems. Like other bacterial infections, borreliosis is treated with antibiotics. However, they should not be abused, especially without specialist advice, due to the risk of developing antibiotic resistance. At the same time, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) claimthat in some circumstances, your doctor may prescribe a single dose of doxycycline prophylaxis immediately after a tick bite to reduce the chance of infection. The same applies to other bacterial infections carried by these animals: anaplasmosis And ehrlichiosis.
It is logical to assume that in cases where the development of diseases can be prevented by taking prophylactic antibiotics, it is really worth finding out as early as possible whether the tick was contagious. However, the CDC is extremely not recommended begin any treatment based only on the results of such tests. Firstly, the infection from an infected tick could simply not have time to be transmitted to a person, then nothing needs to be done. Quick removal of an arthropod after a bite is serious reduces probability of infection, although the minimum time required for transmission of infection is currently not installed and apparently varies depending on the type of bacteria of the genus Borrelia. Secondly, even if the tick tested is healthy, there is no guarantee that it was the only one - perhaps the person simply did not notice one or more bites of other ticks, which, in turn, could be infected. Then this negative analysis of a particular tick will only complicate the diagnosis, because, having discovered any symptoms, a person is less likely to associate them with the bite and may delay seeing a doctor.
In addition, symptoms of borreliosis may appear as early as three days after infection - in this case, prophylactic antibiotics will no longer help and a full course of treatment will be needed. This means that testing, if it takes several days, will not provide any benefits. Experts also agree with the CDC’s position UK Health Safety Agencies And Public Health Agencies of Canada. Both of them, however, accept ticks for testing, but not to diagnose patients, but to keep statistics on what diseases ticks carry in a particular area.
Thus, after a tick bite, it can be taken to a laboratory for testing, but the result, whatever it is, will not be one hundred percent confirmation of whether the person has become infected or not. In addition, there is no specific treatment for some viral diseases transmitted by ticks, which means there is no point in finding out about a possible infection as soon as possible. To combat common bacterial infections, there is post-exposure therapy, but it must be carried out in the first days after the bite. If you spend it waiting for test results, you may waste this time. In addition, ticks carry many different diseases, but laboratories only test for the most common ones. In any case, after a tick bite, you should consult a doctor for advice.
Correction 07/06/24: Data on the minimum time from the moment of a tick bite required for infection with borreliosis has been removed from the material, since at the moment there is no consensus in the scientific community on the exact timing. Information has been added that prompt removal of a tick infected with borreliosis reduces the risk of transmission of infection. The original material can be found at link.
Cover photo: pexels.com
Read on the topic:
- CDC. Preventing Tick Bites
- CDC. Tick Bite: What to Do
- Is it true that there were significantly fewer ticks in the USSR than in modern Russia?
- Is it true that encephalitis ticks were brought to the Far East by Japanese saboteurs?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
