Health officials explain uptick in Lyme disease cases in North Carolina could be due to more deer and warmer temperatures.
By Lauren Berryman
With the population of white-tailed deer increasing in North Carolina, it is becoming difficult to counteract the public health concerns that follow.
According to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, the deer population has drastically increased over the last 100 years – from a mere 10,000 deer to a whopping 1 million deer.
A state initiative to restore a once dwindling deer population began in the 1940s and ran through the 1970s. And since hunting is illegal in state parks today and deer do not have a natural predator, the deer population continues growing.
“Not only have these animals recovered, but they’ve recovered to the point where they’re at an overpopulated level in most areas,” said Jared Beaver, Ph.D., who leads research on deer overpopulation at Pilot Mountain State Park.
The park is equipped to support 10 to 20 deer per square mile. However, camera traps and drone technology detect as many as 80 deer per square mile.
The Deer Project Report for Pilot Mountain State Park explains the overpopulation of deer intensifies the transmission of zoonotic diseases, especially in a place so many people recreate.
“I would say the biggest issue is human safety and wellness,” Beaver said, especially as “deer are a primary reservoir for tick species.”
Deer can carry blacklegged ticks, more commonly known as deer ticks. Typically, cold winter temperatures kill ticks. But as temperatures warm as a result of climate change, ticks are surviving and becoming increasingly difficult to avoid.
Carolina Conway, a junior from Boone, North Carolina, worked at a summer camp in Pisgah National Forest and now works for Outdoor Pursuits at Wake Forest University. She has completed two wilderness first aid trainings where she learned how to treat and prevent tick bites.
“You use a tick scraper or even a credit card to scrape the tick off,” Conway said. “Wilderness experts say to not use tweezers anymore because the head could get dislodged and cause complications.”
Deer ticks are the only type of tick on the East Coast that spreads the bacterial infection Lyme disease. These ticks latch onto people and animals and regurgitate their stomach contents, transmitting the disease.
“Only until very recently, there really haven’t been many cases of Lyme disease in North Carolina,” said Dr. Joanne Clinch, the clinical director at Wake Forest Student Health Service. “I practiced the first part of my career in the Northeast, and we saw a lot of Lyme disease cases there.”
According to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, “Tick-borne illnesses continue to cause significant morbidity [in the state].” Data shows that the average number of confirmed Lyme disease cases from 2009 to 2017 was about 33 cases. However, in 2018, there were 56 confirmed cases among 156 probable cases.
There are many probable cases because Lyme disease is difficult to detect. It presents flu-like symptoms and, sometimes, a bullseye-shaped rash. To diagnose the disease, doctors administer a two-step test, but it is not always effective.
The test requires two steps because it sometimes does not detect Lyme disease at first. There is also a chance that the test gives a false positive because Lyme disease resembles other tick-borne illnesses, which do not present the same long-term health effects.
“My uncle who lives in my town has Lyme disease,” said Samantha Fortner, a junior from Bakersville, North Carolina. “He started showing symptoms of tiredness and dizziness, and since he spends a lot of time in the woods, he decided to get tested. It turned out his doctor misdiagnosed him with another tick-borne illness, but when he went back in for more testing, he was diagnosed with Lyme disease.”
It takes about a week to 30 days to exhibit symptoms of the disease, but when treated in the early stage with the antibiotic Doxycycline, it can be cured. However, undetected and untreated Lyme disease can cause long-term health problems, like arthritis, headaches, short-term memory loss and heart infection. In rare cases, it can even lead to death.
To prevent tick bites and tick-borne illnesses, Clinch recommends covering skin while walking through grassy, wooded areas and checking for ticks after. Ticks like to live on warm parts of the body, like underarms, the groin area and the neck. If a deer tick is removed within 24 hours, it usually cannot transmit the disease.
“If you look at a map, Forsyth County is right below a high incidence county, so tick-borne illnesses are going to come,” said Clinch at Student Health. “The deer are living among us and even dropping ticks in our yards. It will be interesting to see how these patterns change as deer continue to mix more with us.”
Lauren Berryman 