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Timmins, Ontario: Tick taken from local resident linked to Lyme disease

[CanLyme Note: Continuing to inform the public as to whether they are in a low risk or high risk area is wrong and disarming. Considering the abundance of science it is alarming that public health still feels the need to not report the complete picture. Ticks are transported randomly by migratory birds such as robins, wrens, finches, and many other birds. The risk to you changes quickly depending upon; where ticks have been dropped off (your backyard, hiking trail, park, outdoor work area, or hunting grounds), whether pregnant ticks arrived (to lay thousands of eggs), and as to whether that bird carried Lyme disease in their blood to infect new ticks who fed on them during flight.  These adventitious ticks then infect your local rodent population, establishing the disease in your area.  It then often takes years for public health to recognize an endemic area.]

Published Sept 26th, 2016 Timmins Press

TIMMINS – The Porcupine Health Unit has confirmed a blacklegged tick has tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that can cause Lyme disease, within the area.

Suzanne Lajoie, a public health inspector at the health unit, confirmed the tick was removed from a resident in a community north of Timmins — but declined to state specifically where.

In a release issued by the health unit, Dr. Lianne Catton, the Medical Officer of Health at the Porcupine Health Unit, stated “our area remains a low risk area for Lyme disease. This is the first summer the blacklegged ticks have been confirmed in our region, and the first tick to test positive for Borrelia burgdorferi.”

The blacklegged tick was removed from a resident in July, and “currently there are no clinical concerns for Lyme disease,” the health unit said in its release.

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