From the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, a new map showing the risks of catching Lyme disease in the US, based on catching and analyzing ticks. (Abstract) From their press release: …The scientists involved in the study assembled a large field staff of more than 80 tick hunters. From 2004 to 2007, they combed through 304 individual sites from Maine to Florida and across the Midwest, dragging a one-meter by one-meter square of corduroy cloth in hopes of snagging the black legged tick Ixodes scapularis that is the main carrier of the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi. (The study did not examine risk in the West where Lyme disease is believed to be confined to areas along the Pacific Coast where a different tick species, known as Ixodes pacificus or the western blacklegged tick, carries Lyme.). …The maps that emerged from the tick survey show a clear risk of Lyme disease in large parts of the Northeast (including eastern Pennsylvania) from Maine going as far south as Maryland and northern Virginia, which is in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. But while conditions could be favorable for the disease to spread into the Tidewater region of Virginia – the data collected for the study indicates the bulk of the South is free of Lyme disease-carrying ticks. The researchers also identify a separate and distinct Lyme disease risk region in the upper Midwest. It includes most of Wisconsin, a large area in northern Minnesota, and a sliver of northern Illinois.  However, the scientists confirm that Lyme disease remains on the move as its preference for forests and deer is aided by a century-long re-planting of trees inland once cleared for agriculture, along with a resurgence of deer populations. Diuk-Wasser and her colleagues found evidence to support an “emerging risk” for Lyme disease along the Illinois/Indiana border, the New York/Vermont border, southwestern Michigan, and eastern North Dakota. Also, Diuk-Wasser said new, unpublished field work now underway indicates Lyme disease is probably moving into central Virginia.
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From the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, a new map showing the risks of catching Lyme disease in the US, based on catching and analyzing ticks. (Abstract)

From their press release:

…The scientists involved in the study assembled a large field staff of more than 80 tick hunters. From 2004 to 2007, they combed through 304 individual sites from Maine to Florida and across the Midwest, dragging a one-meter by one-meter square of corduroy cloth in hopes of snagging the black legged tick Ixodes scapularis that is the main carrier of the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi. (The study did not examine risk in the West where Lyme disease is believed to be confined to areas along the Pacific Coast where a different tick species, known as Ixodes pacificus or the western blacklegged tick, carries Lyme.).

…The maps that emerged from the tick survey show a clear risk of Lyme disease in large parts of the Northeast (including eastern Pennsylvania) from Maine going as far south as Maryland and northern Virginia, which is in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. But while conditions could be favorable for the disease to spread into the Tidewater region of Virginia – the data collected for the study indicates the bulk of the South is free of Lyme disease-carrying ticks.

The researchers also identify a separate and distinct Lyme disease risk region in the upper Midwest. It includes most of Wisconsin, a large area in northern Minnesota, and a sliver of northern Illinois. 

However, the scientists confirm that Lyme disease remains on the move as its preference for forests and deer is aided by a century-long re-planting of trees inland once cleared for agriculture, along with a resurgence of deer populations. Diuk-Wasser and her colleagues found evidence to support an “emerging risk” for Lyme disease along the Illinois/Indiana border, the New York/Vermont border, southwestern Michigan, and eastern North Dakota. Also, Diuk-Wasser said new, unpublished field work now underway indicates Lyme disease is probably moving into central Virginia.

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