Week 3

 Week 3 at GCHD


Things are continuing smoothly in and out of the office. This week, a lot of my time was spent creating a draft for an updated version of the “Tick Surveillance” website. This is one of my boss, Melinda’s, main goals for my time here. She wants information about tick surveillance and safety to be easily accessible to residents and visitors of the county, and having an updated version of the website available would help make this possible. We wanted some information specific to the data we’ve collected in the area, as well as general information thats useful elsewhere (such as bite prevention, removal, etc). 

In addition to working on the website, I also spent some time compiling data and information about tick-borne diseases, with the goal of sending out a memo to healthcare providers in the area. We focused on pathogens spread by I. scapularis, using our data from the CDC in the past 2 years. 

I also made it a point to discuss co-infection, as that is an occasional complication that arises, one that can made complications more likely. A number of ticks in years past have tested positive for multiple pathogens, so we thought it would be valuable to emphasize. 

Due to some iffy weather conditions, I didn’t end up spending a ton of time outdoors doing field work, but managed to get a few drags done when the weather was somewhat-ideal. Tick populations were still pretty strong, with many nymphs and almost no adult Ixodes ticks. Melinda and I did go to a new dragging location at one point, and it was more dominated by taller grasses than forest, and as a result, we found a lot of American Dog ticks at this location. At one point (when the grass was as tall as my chest), I had a narrow encounter with some kind of snake, though I didn’t end up getting a good look at it to be able to tell its species. Though it spooked me a little, we continued on and ended up finding some Ixodes larva, which we hadn’t found much of this year.


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