City at-risk area for Lyme disease

Public health notes chance of catching disease from blacklegged ticks remains low

HAMILTON IS NOW on Ontario's Lyme disease map, a development local public health officials say shouldn't come as a surprise given the blacklegged tick's steady migration north.

The city qualifies as a "Lyme disease estimated risk area" after local tick catchers found three blacklegged ticks in the spring and three more in the fall at Christie Lake Conservation Area last year. This means public health will encourage doctors to be more aware of Lyme disease as the city looks to increase tick warning signs around natural areas.

"Now that we're an estimated risk area we're certainly going to be looking at what extra information needs to be added," Susan Harding-Cruz, manager of the city's vector-borne dis--

ease program, told the board of health Monday.

Public health still notes the chances of catching Lyme disease from the bacteria-carrying blacklegged ticks remains low.

That said, the city committee has been meeting for months on a "tick management plan" that explores how urban design in parks and trails can be used to reduce the risk of contracting the disease through bites.

Coun. Brenda Johnson said some Glanbrook residents whose neatly kept yards back onto an overgrown hydro corridor are concerned about blacklegged ticks hitching rides onto their properties.

"That's the part that's frustrating to me," Johnson said. "It's just a matter of hopping onto their family dog and away you go."

Harding-Cruz suggested the committee could look at the issue, but later noted the urban design strategy aims to strike a balance, noting too much cutting of long grass could invite other pests to invade residential areas.

City staff have been working with the Royal Botanical Gardens and Conservation Hamilton on the tick management plan.

An influx of ticks in Ontario has been expected for some time with the onset of climate change and farmland turning into forested areas. The pests have also hitched rides north on migratory birds and humans.

"We're certainly in the zone of an expected tick abundance and of Lyme disease," Harding-Cruz said.

The disease caused by bacteria in blacklegged ticks can initially cause flu-like symptoms, such as fatigue, fever and headaches, but can progress to nerve damage, heart problems and arthritis.

The nearest estimated risk area to Hamilton is Wainfleet Bog in Niagara Region. Other hot spots are along Lake Erie and in eastern Ontario.

For an area to be labelled a provincial Lyme disease estimated risk area, blacklegged ticks must be found during "dragging" in spring and fall in the same area. In Hamilton, that happened at Christie Lake Conservation Area, from which a 20-kilometre radius now maps out the estimated risk area. Seven blacklegged ticks were also found at Royal Botanical Gardens paths and Borer's Falls in Dundas, but not during spring and fall.

In 2016, dragging ,which basically involves a stick and a net, yielded one blacklegged tick in Cootes Paradise in the fall. It tested negative for the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

Last year, members of the public submitted 892 ticks to public health in Hamilton. Seventy-eight were blacklegged, of which eight tested positive for Lyme — with one test result pending. In 2016, public health received 297 ticks, 26 of which were blacklegged.

"One of the things that we need to do ... is kind of face the facts that the ticks are here," Harding-Cruz said. "Unfortunately, this disease needs to be prevented through personal measures."

That includes removing ticks from skin as soon as they're noticed, and taking preventative measures, such as wearing long pants and sleeves in shady, long-grass areas.