Tick tally reveals Lyme risk locations

For four years, researchers combed through hundreds of state parks and bushy areas looking for the culprit responsible for Lyme disease. The blacklegged tick, also known as a deer tick, transmits the disease through a bite.

About 20 percent of the 5,332 ticks collected in the Eastern half of the country were infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Lead author Maria Diuk-Wasser says her suspicion about where her team would find infected ticks — and the subsequent risk for the disease — was confirmed when she mapped the data.

"We suspected strongly that we wouldn't find [infected ticks] in the South," the Yale epidemiologist tells Shots. "The tick is found in the South, but it's not infected and it doesn't feed on humans, but on lizards." Researchers found the highest risk of infection for humans in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest.

Read the story on Minnesota Public Radio's website:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=146211699