The Allegheny County Health Department says 25% of the ticks being collected in Western Pennsylvania are positive for Lyme disease.
Lyme disease is the most common vector borne disease in the US, Pennsylvania and in Allegheny County. It's transmitted by the black-legged or deer tick and has the best chance of biting humans. Vector control program coordinator Leah Lamonte says there an upside to a tick bite.
"A back-legged tick needs to be attached to you for at least 24 hours before it can transmit the bacteria to you", she says.
That's why it's important check yourself, family and pets for ticks. If you find one, have it removed ASAP.
The County Health Department is part of a statewide study, collecting black legged ticks.
They're looking for ticks in the nymph stage, when they're most likely to transmit Lyme Disease because they're small and very active in the summer months. The Health Department sends the ticks to a state lab be tested.
Lemonte wants people to know they can take prevention measures to protect family and pets:
1) Defending yourself and your property. To defend yourself, her best tip would be to buy the product called permethrin. That's a spray product that you can buy in the store or online that you apply to your shoes and your clothing. It creates a halo of protection for when you're out and about on trails or doing outdoor work or gardening. It prevents the ticks from wanting to come on to you and attach. Permethrin goes on to your shoes and your clothing. DEET is a product that you apply to your skin. Those are two different products that very effective against ticks.
2) The other thing you can do on your property is make sure you treat your lawn. There's products available in the hardware store that are actually labeled for ticks so you can do a lawn treatment about three times a year to help cut down the number of ticks that are coming through your yard.
3) You want to make sure you are checking and treating your animals. Cats and dogs are great carriers of ticks. You might have your dog out for a walk and he picks up a tick, and then you bring him home and then the tick falls off and it's possible the tick could fall on you so you want to make sure to talk to your veterinarian about getting your animals treated. They can do preventative treatments to make sure ticks are not attaching to your dogs.
4) You want to avoid tick habitats. A lot of times those are the high brush areas, any area where there's a lot of leaf litter; also the edge of the trails, and any of those transition points, such as when you have a back yard that's up against some woods, or cut grass that goes into a wooded area. Those are places where ticks tend to hang out.
5) Whenever you're out and about and you're doing outdoor work or hiking, and you come indoors, make sure you take your clothes off right away, put them in the dryer on high heat, jump in the shower and then do a tick check on yourself.
6) And then if you do find any ticks, you want to make sure you eliminate them correctly. Lamonte recommends using the fine tip tweezers. There are also lots of tick removal tools that you can purchase.