Prevention of tick-borne borreliosis

Tick-borne systemic borreliosis (Lyme Disease) – this is a transmissible, naturally-focal disease that is characterized by damage to the skin, joints, nervous system and heart, and often takes a chronic, recurrent course. The natural hosts of borrelia in nature are wild animals (rodents, birds, deer, etc.), which are "feeders" of ticks of the genus Ixodes - carriers of borrelia.

Human infection is carried out by a vector-borne path: with saliva when bitten by a tick, although the possibility of infection is not excluded if its feces get on the skin, followed by rubbing when combing.

If the treatment of tick-borne borrelliosis is started at its early stage of development, the chances of a complete recovery of the patient will be very high.

The chronic development of Lyme disease can lead to disability and even death as a result of irreversible changes in the cardiovascular and nervous systems. After passing the course of treatment, a person should be registered with an infectious disease specialist and other doctors.

Preventive measures are non-specific and consist in the prevention of tick bites and the suppression of the alimentary pathway of infection:

• for walks in the forest and park, you should dress in thick clothes of light shades;
• clothing should lean well against the body in the area of the ankles, wrists and neck;
• trousers should be tucked into socks and boots;
• be sure to wear a headdress;
• to repel ticks, repellents should be applied to clothing and skin;
• try to avoid high bushes, thickets and weeds, if you can not get around the obstacle, make a path for yourself with a stick or branch, tapping on the plants (in order to throw ticks from them to the ground);
• after each hour passed on the road, carefully examine each other, especially the area of the chest, armpits and neck: usually the tick does not suck immediately, but chooses the most convenient place for this;
• do not remove grass, branches and plants from the forest – they may contain ticks.

What to do when detecting a stuck tick?

Try to remove the arthropod as quickly as possible, preferably in a hospital setting. Removing the tick yourself (in the case of being away from medical institutions), use the anti-tick module or a loop of thread, which is carefully thrown on the tick body and pulled out, and the resulting wound is treated with an antiseptic drug. It is important to try to remove the tick entirely, and if this does not work – collect its remains in a jar with a lid.

It is necessary to contact a medical institution and show the bite site to a specialist. Health workers will check whether all the parts of the arthropod are extracted from the skin and write out a referral for a tick analysis for infection.

Next, you should take the tick to the laboratory for research: GUZ "Lipetsk Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital", FBUZ "Center of Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Lipetsk region", GUZ "Lipetsk regional skin and venereal dispensary". This should be done immediately, at most-after a day from the moment of extraction (in this case, the arthropod must be stored in the refrigerator in a tightly closed container).

Infectious diseases specialist GUZ " Lipetsk Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital»,
Slyusareva Galina Petrovna