One recent morning at Bridgeport’s Seaside Park, US Senator Richard Blumenthal joined Connecticut State Epidemiologist Matthew Cartter, MD, MPH, advocates and patients in calling for additional federal funding for Lyme research to develop better tools for diagnosis and reporting of the disease.

At the event, experts shared the latest statistics on Lyme prevalence in Connecticut.

Advocates and experts also share simple steps people can take to protect against Lyme, including the BLAST prevention program that Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert has been touting for several years.

BLAST stands for Bathe, Look for ticks, Apply repellant, Spray your yard, and Treat your pets.

Earlier in June, Sen Blumenthal also took another important step in the effort to reduce tickborne disease by reintroducing the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Protection, Education and Research Act, which would help develop better tools for diagnosing and reporting Lyme, as well as increase awareness and education in the medical community.

According to the senator’s website, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates nearly 300,000 Americans contract Lyme disease annually, but 95 percent of those Lyme disease cases occur in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Vermont, Virginia, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin.

“Now that the weather is warmer, people will be spending much more time outdoors. Unfortunately, more time outside — especially in wooded areas that are so common in my home state of Connecticut — also means more exposure to tick-borne illnesses, like Lyme disease — a pernicious and insidious public health threat,” Sen Blumenthal said. “I am proud of reintroducing a measure that will address the need for a strong national effort to fight these diseases as they become more rampant in the warmer months. By making improvements to reporting methods and diagnostic tools, as well as creating a national advisory body that brings together patients, scientists, and policymakers, this legislation will make critical improvements to prevention and treatment methods.”

Locally, Ms Culbert and her staff at the Health District know that tick-borne disease is a problem for Newtown residents.

“We inform about risks of tick bites and how to prevent them, as well as to seek early treatment; however, we have the challenge of no real progress in the overall reduction of the vector — the tick itself,” Ms Culbert told The Newtown Bee.

She said test results from ticks submitted this year by the Newtown community for analysis by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) are keeping pace with reports from across Fairfield County.

“As of June 19, we are at a 39 percent positive rate,” Ms Culbert said. “Of additional interest is the fact that as of June 19, 71 of the 130 specimens submitted in Newtown were analyzed, which means they had a blood meal. In 2014, at this time, it was 25 of 77; in 2013 it was 55 of 116; and in 2012 it was 40 of 118.”

Ms Culbert said the trend is significant because it means the ticks are on the person long enough to attach and feed.

“Until we can reduce the number of ticks in our lives, it is imperative that we work even harder to prevent them from attaching and feeding, and potentially infecting,” she said.

The CAES Tick Testing Program was established in 1990 as a service to local health departments and districts in order to assist physicians and Connecticut residents concerning treatment. Each year, an average of 3,000 ticks are submitted for testing.

In the past, testing was limited to the Lyme disease agent, but in view of increasing human cases of this and other tick-related illnesses in the state, testing has been expanded.

The most recent data from the CAES showed that 34 percent of blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) submitted to the Tick Testing Laboratory so far this year have tested positive for the Lyme disease agent, Borrelia burgdorferi. This represents an increase of nearly seven percent over the last five years of testing.

As a result, the CAES expanded the program to include testing for two emerging tick-associated pathogens for the first time:

*Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the causative agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis, and

*Babesia microti, the causative agent of babesiosis, for which 12.0 percent and 3.6 percent of ticks have tested positive, respectively.

From 2010 to 2014, 13,983 human cases of Lyme disease, 659 cases of babesiosis and 286 cases of anaplasmosis were reported in Connecticut.

The most recent testing data for Fairfield County shows Borrelia burgdorferi in 31.1 percent of ticks submitted; Babesia microti in 14.2 percent of samples; and Anaplasma phagocytophilum in 4.8 percent of the tested ticks.

“These findings highlight the growing risk of human infection with tick-associated diseases throughout the state and the importance of taking precautionary measures to avoid tick bites,” said Dr Theodore Andreadis, director, CAES.

Newtown’s health director believes the CAES work is very important to us on a variety of levels.

“They are providing valuable information about whether the submitted tick carries the bacteria that causes diseases, and have made processing improvements to do this in a timely manner even when they are receiving large numbers of specimens,” Ms Culbert said. “Expanding the program is critically important as we see the incidence of other tickborne diseases impacting our residents. The CAES scientists are collecting and analyzing the data that is necessary to better understand ticks and tickborne disease and to inform the work of reducing and hopefully eliminating this public health hazard.”

To learn more about specific prevention programs supported by the Newtown Health District, or its BLAST program, visit newtown-ct.gov and click on the appropriate link on the Health District Page under Town Departments.