Free Lyme testing coming this spring
Cape Codders bitten by deer ticks will be able to have the insects tested for Lyme and two other diseases for free starting this spring.
The testing will take place at the Laboratory of Medical Zoology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is being funded by a $111,000 Governor's Community Innovation Challenge program.
TICK DISEASES
Figures are for confirmed or probable cases for 2012, the latest year available from the state Department of Public Health.
Disease Cape and Islands Statewide Local percentage
- Lyme 438 5050 9%
- Babesiosis 103 223 46%
- Anaplasmosis 43 237 18%
Local boards of health and the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension will have prepaid mailers addressed to the UMass laboratory of microbiologist Stephen Rich, said Larry Dapsis, Cape Cod Cooperative Extension deer tick program coordinator. The plan is to have mailers available sometime in April, he said.
"We're working out the details," he said. Individuals should receive the results of their tests within one week, and towns and the county will track data for their communities, Dapsis said.
The ticks will be tested for Lyme disease, as well as anaplasmosis and babesiosis, said Dapsis, who is also the Barnstable County entomologist.
The tests for all three at UMass would normally cost individuals $140, he said.
This is the first time the state is funding a regional surveillance of the kinds of disease carried by deer ticks with which people have come into contact, Dapsis said.
The information will be used to track what tick-borne pathogens people are exposed to in the 32 towns covered by Barnstable, Nantucket, Middlesex and Franklin counties, he said.
The number of ticks tested for free in each town will be capped at 100, Dapsis said.
It's going to create awareness about disease patterns, he said. People know about Lyme disease, but they "might be kind of surprised" what else they are exposed to, Dapsis said.
The Cape and Islands have long been hot spots for Lyme disease and now face a growing prevalence of babesiosis and anaplasmosis, potentially fatal diseases also transmitted by the deer tick.
In 2012, the last year for which the state Department of Public Health has figures, there were 438 confirmed or probable cases of Lyme disease on the Cape and Islands — about 9 percent of the state total of 5,050 cases.
The Cape and Islands had 103 cases of babesiosis in 2012, nearly half of the state total of 233, as well as 43 cases of anaplasmosis, out of a statewide total of 237.
The Cape and Islands Cooperative Extension runs another type of surveillance program, dragging for ticks at 14 sites on the Cape and Islands and sending them for testing to Rich's UMass lab.
The lab has tested 2,000 ticks over the past five years, but they were ticks picked up by researchers dragging white cloths in designated nature areas — not deer ticks picked off people, Dapsis said.
"What's really exciting about the project we're doing now (is that) it sort of makes the connection between where the ticks are, who is getting bitten, when they are getting bitten and what they are getting bitten with," Rich said.
"We don't intend this to be a medical diagnosis or a substitute for seeing your doctor if you are feeling ill," he said. "Our tick tests are telling something about risk."
Ron Gangemi, one of the founders of Lyme Awareness of Cape Cod, said the more information people can learn about deer ticks and disease incidence and patterns the better.
"I think it's an awesome thing they're doing," he said.
Gangemi plans to open the Lyme Disease Health and Wellness Center at an office condominium he purchased in Mashpee by May.
He said he will volunteer to be a dropoff site for ticks to be tested at UMass.
The grant lasts for one year and was proposed by the town of Bedford Health Department and Rich's lab at UMass.
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