Exotic east Asian tick bites child
A 6-year-old from Fairfield County is the first person in the state to be bitten by an exotic tick that has only popped up in nine states.
The Tick Testing Laboratory at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station said Monday the confirmed report is the first evidence that the east Asian longhorned tick — which was first detected in Connecticut in July — had bitten a person here.
“Unfortunately, exotic ticks are finding their way into the U.S.,” said Dr. Goudarz Molaei, who directs the agricultural station’s tick testing program.
Molaei said he’s been in contact with the parents of the bitten child, who first found the tick in the child’s bed and found evidence of a tick bite on the child’s head. Although ticks are largely associated with Lyme and other diseases, Molaei said the child hasn’t shown any signs of being ill.
The longhorned tick, which has the scientific name Haemaphysalis longicornis, is an invasive species that was initially discovered on a farm in New Jersey in 2017, and has since been found in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and several other states.
In other parts of the world — including parts of Asia and New Zealand — longhorned ticks have been known to carry human pathogens, but Molaei said it’s unknown whether the pests will be capable of carrying Lyme disease, babesiosis and other illnesses associated with ticks.
He said testing is being done on the tick to determine what, if any risks it carries.
“We do not really know what disease agents this tick could (transmit),” he said.
It’s also unknown how widespread the tick is in Connecticut. Molaei said he hopes to travel to the home of the bitten child
(whose town of residence wasn’t released) to look for other ticks in the area.
Though ticks carry an array of diseases, perhaps the illness they are most associated with in this part of the country is Lyme disease, which is caused by a spiral bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. Symptoms can include fever, headache, fatigue and a characteristic “bull’s-eye”-shaped skin rash. If left untreated, the illness can have serious consequences.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are roughly 30,000 cases of Lyme disease reported every year, but many don’t get reported.
The agricultural station has been offering its tick testing program to state residents since 1990. Ticks are only accepted from state residents and should be submitted through local health departments. The creatures are tested for materials that cause Lyme disease, babsiosis and anaplasmosis. Testing is performed on nearly 4,000 ticks annually.
The fact that someone in the state has been bitten by an exotic tick, “underscores the importance of our tick-testing program in helping to corroborate the capacity of this tick to bite humans outside of its native range,” said Dr. Theodore Andreadis, director of the CAES in a statement issued Monday.
“Going forward, it will be imperative to more fully assess the risk associated with this tick and its capacity to transmit local disease-causing pathogens,” the statement said.