So you’ve been bitten by a tick. Here’s why you’ll have to pay a private lab to test it for pathogens

As the weather gets warmer and Canadians shed their winter layers to get out in the sun, we should beware of a growing danger in our cities, suburbs and rural areas: ticks and the diseases they carry. 

Ticks are now so prevalent in some regions of Canada that case counts are soaring, so no matter how vigilant we are, some of us are going to get bitten and go on to get Lyme disease, as well as other tick-borne illnesses. 

That’s why it’s important to locate the tick that’s latched on to you, remove it from your skin, and get it sent to a lab to find out what pathogens it’s carrying so health professionals can treat you more effectively. 

Many public health units in regions where climate change has fueled a population explosion of ticks – Nova Scotia, southwestern Quebec, southern Ontario, southern Manitoba and British Columbia – used to analyze ticks sent in by doctors and patients. 

But a recent survey by the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (CanLyme) reveals:

• No Canadian public health units provide this service anymore,
• Units in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan will test blacklegged ticks for pathogens for geographic surveillance only, 
• Ontario units stopped all testing of ticks as of Jan. 1, 2025 and now refer all specimens to the eTick System, which is for identification and monitoring only, as do units in Manitoba.
• All four Atlantic provinces also refer specimens to eTick,
• Units in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan will test ticks that have bitten pets and livestock, as will half the units in Quebec.

Public health agencies say they’ve discontinued testing for patients because ticks have become so prevalent there’s already plenty of data available on the kinds of pathogens they’re carrying.

But Justin Wood, the founder, CEO, and director of Geneticks, Canada’s first private tick testing laboratory, says such testing can still play a crucial role and private labs like Geneticks are picking up the slack.

“In fact, I think it’s one of the best tools we have currently for providing more information about exposure to tick-borne pathogens and diseases and then making critical decisions,” says Wood, a geneticist and microbiologist who founded Geneticks in 2018.

“So, with tick-borne diseases – and Lyme disease in particular – early interventions are critical,” he says.

Wood, who was himself diagnosed with late disseminated Lyme disease in 2015 and has struggled with the symptoms for years, says testing ticks and getting the results to doctors quickly can help them get treatment started in the earliest stage of the disease. 

“If we can treat early, the intervention tends to be a relatively short course of antibiotics and prognosis is very good. Most people recover and don’t go on to develop long-term … debilitating or difficult-to-treat symptoms,” he says. 

Wood says early tick analysis is all the more important due to the limitations of the test now used in Canada to diagnose Lyme disease. Because it detects the immune response to the bacteria, not the pathogens themselves, it can yield false negatives if the patient hasn’t yet developed antibodies to fight the infection. 

As a result, Lyme disease goes undiagnosed far too often and many patients develop disabling long-term symptoms and complications – a condition sometimes referred to as “chronic Lyme” or “long Lyme.”

Dr. Sarah Keating, an anatomic pathologist and a member of the CanLyme board of directors, agrees with Wood that tick analysis is “extremely important” in determining early treatment after a tick bite.

“If a bulls-eye rash is present, that is good evidence for acute Lyme, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the possible presence of co-infections such as babesiosis,” says Keating, an associate professor emeritus in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto.  

“Knowing whether the commonest pathogens are present is essential for the medical team to come up with the best possible initial treatment plan,” she says.

Pandemic, cost-cutting part of the problem 

Canadian public health units stopped testing ticks for patients, not only due to the pests’ endemic status in many regions, but also because of cost cutting and the burdens placed on them by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s led to a critical lack of information for people bitten by ticks, making prevention of tick-borne diseases all the more challenging in Canada.

But Wood says private services like Geneticks can analyze ticks on behalf of patients for the pathogens that cause infections including Lyme disease, babesiosis, and Powassan fever.

Geneticks tests ticks that have bitten humans or pets for up to 17 pathogens. The lab provides results anywhere from the same day to two-to-five business days. 

“We really appreciate that these sorts of things are time sensitive,” Wood says. “We want to make sure that people can take this information to their doctors as soon as possible.”

The company charges as little as $65 to test for the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. The cost can rise depending on how many pathogens patients want to test for and how quickly they want to receive the results.

In addition to Geneticks, other private firms doing this kind of work include:

• emDx: Offers advanced molecular testing for various tick-borne pathogens.
• RPC: An independent laboratory that offers PCR testing for ticks, providing results on pathogens such as Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Babesia microti.
• GDG Environnement: A Quebec-based service offering molecular PCR analysis for Lyme and other infections for approximately $155 per tick.

But Keating says these companies can’t do the job alone.

“Private labs such as Geneticks are filling the gap but I don’t believe they are the long-term answer,” she says. 

Keating says many patients can’t afford the fees these labs charge to test for multiple pathogens and to expedite the return of results. And she believes public health units need to get back to testing ticks on behalf of individual patients.

“Provincial ministries of health would incur a cost but it would be more than offset by avoiding the health-care costs of chronically ill patients who are shunted from one specialist to another for years without a diagnosis as so often happens,” Keating says. 

“In Canada, we believe in universal health care, but unfortunately this is seldom a reality for patients with long Lyme and other tick-borne infections,” she continues. 

“Universal health care should include access to accurate diagnosis and since the current Lyme test is flawed, testing the infecting ticks is the next best approach.”