Air Force, Army partner to combat tick-borne diseases

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Amanda Dick
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  Tick season is upon us ... in an effort to educate the community on the risks of tick-borne diseases, the 86th Aerospace Medicine Squadron public health flight here has been working with the U.S. Army Public Health Command Region-Europe to conduct surveillance in the area.

"Part of our responsibility in the public health flight is surveillance for arthropod vectors, arthropods that potentially transmit diseases to humans," said Lt. Col. Kirk Winger, 86th AMDS public health flight commander. "[The Army] has some unique expertise in the region. They've also developed some capabilities to test the ticks for pathogens. We know ticks are a concern here in Germany, and we know ticks can transmit diseases to humans."

This surveillance is important to the Army as well.

"It's needed because we don't have any tick surveillance on Ramstein specifically," said Maj. Lesly Calix, USAPHCEUR medical entomologist. "[Public health] collects the specimens; we identify them and submit them for testing. The surveillance is very important, so we know what we have and the risks we have in the area."

To collect tick specimens, public health uses a couple of methods. The main method is a Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, trap. To set up the trap, public health technicians lay down a white piece of cardboard with adhesive near the outer edges in a high traffic wooded area. In the center of the board is a styrofoam container with a block of dry ice inside it. As the dry ice melts, it emits CO2 which attracts the ticks.

"Ticks feed off blood, and they get this blood from mammals and birds," said Airman 1st Class Earnest Weaver, 86th AMDS public health technician. "They go about detecting or honing in on those species through sensing CO2 levels. The styrofoam box is a really good insulator that allows the dry ice to melt slowly and continuously release CO2 out of the holes in the bottom. Ticks will go toward the CO2 and get stuck on the tape. We then check the next day and collect the ticks."

According to the technician, another method of collecting ticks is called a "tick drag" and involves walking in an area suspected of being heavily populated with ticks and dragging a blanket or other piece of cloth, which the ticks latch onto after sensing CO2 from exhaled breath or movement from the person dragging the blanket.

Common misconceptions

True or false, ticks can be removed by lighting a match, blowing it out and touching it to a tick to get it to release its hold?

The answer to this question is false. Some other common misconceptions are that petroleum jelly, alcohol or a hot needle is useful to remove a tick -- false.

According to Colonel Winger, the correct way to remove a tick from the body is to "use tweezers, grab the tick as close as you can to the skin, apply gentle, steady pressure and remove the tick. You shouldn't use any other method, because it might upset, or stress, the tick and cause it to regurgitate and expel its gut content into your blood, including a potential disease causing pathogen."

Prevention

To prevent ticks from biting or taking a blood meal from you, try to avoid areas where ticks accumulate or "quest," such as tall grass or wooded, shaded areas, Airman Weaver said.

If this is unavoidable, public health offers the following tips:

-Wear boots
-Wear long pants
-Tuck pants into boots, if possible
-Wear long-sleeved shirts
-Treat clothing/uniforms with permethrin and your skin with DEET, according to product labels
-Wear lighter-colored clothing; this will make it easier to spot ticks when performing tick checks

Tick checks

Once home, it's time to complete a tick check.

"Look over all your clothes, look along your hairline, run your hands all over your pets for ticks," the flight commander said. "If you identify them early, they won't be attached to you and feeding yet, so they're easier to remove. The next best time to look for ticks is when you're taking a shower and can check areas you wouldn't necessarily see with your clothes on -- places where you have creases, like your knee, and your groin area. If you don't check right away and give the tick time to bite you and attach itself, it's more difficult to remove."

The colonel went on to add that early detection and removal of ticks can help prevent disease, because ticks need to feed for 24 hours or more to transmit some diseases.

What happens if a tick has latched on to someone? Medical care is not necessarily needed, according to the colonel. The important thing is to remove the tick using the appropriate method. However, he suggests keeping the tick in a Ziploc bag in the freezer and watching yourself for signs and symptoms of a tick-borne disease.

Some common symptoms may include, but are not limited to, a rash at the area of the tick bite, headaches, fever and nausea.

If symptoms arise, take the tick with you to the doctor's office, so they can send it away for analysis. If the tick is not kept, at the very least let the doctor know of the tick bite, so they can consider a tick-borne disease as a potential diagnosis.

According to Major Calix, there are three tick-borne diseases USAPHCEUR is specifically looking for: Lyme Borreliosis (referred to as Lyme disease in the States), Anaplasmosis and Tick-borne Encephalitis.

Ticks tend to be most active between early-to-mid spring until late fall, the colonel said.

"It's affected by the weather," he added. "If it's a year when we have an early spring with warmer temperatures, then the ticks come out sooner. During the summer when it gets really hot, the ticks tend more to take cover and feed less. They come out more again in the fall when the weather is more conducive to their survival."

Knowing what kind of diseases the ticks carry will help combat against human transmittal. According to Colonel Winger, of the more than 22,000 beneficiaries enrolled for care at the Ramstein Clinic last year, approximately 15 were diagnosed with Lyme disease.

For more information on the U.S. Army Public Health Command Region-Europe, visit their Web site at http://www.chppmeur.healthcare.hqusareur.army.mil/.  

To find out more information on tick-borne diseases, control and prevention, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/.