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Using epidemiological techniques, Steere found that all of the victims including Polly Murray and her family lived near wooded areas and first noticed their symptoms in summer or fall. Warm weather is insect time, and woods are a perfect breeding ground. Many patients mentioned an unusual bull's-eye rash that appeared weeks before their symptoms began. It was similar to a rash reported in Europe, thought to be caused by a tick bite.
Ixodes dammini.
Researchers collected ticks, and in 1979 a medical entomologist Andrew Spielman described the suspect tick as a new species, Ixodes dammini. In a two-year life cycle tick larvae hatch in late summer and take a blood meal from white-footed mice. The next spring the tick nymphs feed sometimes from humans, but more often from white-tailed deer. The deer themselves do not become ill, but in the previous few decades deer...
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This section contains 265 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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