10 myths about mites and encephalitis

Tick-borne encephalitis – one of the most dangerous viral diseases which causative agents transfer and is given to people by ixodic mites. These are the small blood-sicking insects living in the considerable territory of our country. The person bitten by a tick can catch also erlikhiozy, bartonnelezy, babeziozy, mycoplasmosis and Lyme's disease. As well as encephalitis, these illnesses affect the central nervous system, and as specific antiviral therapy does not exist, the forecast is very unfavourable: the probability of lethal outcomes is quite high, and most of the had patients receive serious complications, up to disability. The incidence statistics does not please too. From year to year the number of the people who caught at a sting of mites grows. Partly are the reason of it insufficient awareness of our compatriots on specifics of these illnesses and ways of protection against them. There is a set of delusions about a tick-borne encephalitis and its carriers. Let's get acquainted with the most widespread of them.

1. The virus of encephalitis lives only in mites

Actually, mites only carry a virus. In the nature the activator lives in an organism of birds, rats, wild hoofed animals and a livestock (goats, cows). The tick who bit the infected animal gets a virus which breeds in its sialadens with blood. The person can catch encephalitis and through raw goat or cow's milk.

2. Any tick can infect the person

Such statement is partly right. Only two species of mites transfer dangerous viruses: taiga and forest European and those can be not infected, however the nonspecialist cannot distinguish them from harmless relatives. Therefore any sting of a tick should be considered potentially dangerous.

3. Ticks live on trees

It absolutely not so. Carriers of a virus of encephalitis live preferential in a dense grass, not above a half a meter from the earth so the open field or a meadow in this sense are not less dangerous, than a midwood. As a rule, the tick sits, having hidden, near a footpath and waits any hematothermal animal to hang on him, having hooked for wool. Then the insect creeps on a body of the victim, aiming to find the place, most convenient for a sting.

The delusion arose, apparently, because on a body of the person the tick usually moves from below up, trying to creep in a skin fold or other place with the most gentle, thin cover.

4. Ticks attack people in light clothes more often

Ticks badly see and do not distinguish color. Dark fabric does not protect from them. But cover clothes in which the person walks on the wood, it is very important. The suit has to have skintight cuffs on trousers and sleeves. The most suitable footwear are high boots. Also the headdress or a hood is necessary.

5. The doctor has to pull out the stuck tick

For the person bitten by a tick, the matter of time is vital. The longer the insect remains on skin, the bigger number of activators gets to blood, and the disease course depends on it. Therefore at impossibility to urgently visit the doctor, the tick needs to be pulled out independently.

From this does not follow that the subsequent visit to the doctor can be neglected. The taken-out tick (it is desirable live), it is necessary to show to the specialist to estimate probability of infection. There is also one more statement: having allegedly pulled out a tick within 24 hours, it is possible to secure the person against infection completely. It is incorrect too: even the promptest actions of a guarantee of absence of infection do not give.

6. A tick it is possible to induce to be unhooked, having oiled skin

Probably, means that the insect will have nothing to breathe, and it will weaken a bite to take a sip air. Actually openings through which the tick breathes are at him on an abdomen so this method is absolutely insolvent. Two most effective ways of pulling of the stuck ticks consist in the following:

• Insect tie with a strong thread as it is possible closer to a proboscis (to skin of the person), then stretch the ends of thread, making the shaking movements. If the little body comes off, the got stuck head is taken the needle calcinated on fire;
• In the place of suction of a tick will organize intensive having blown in skin. As a make-shift it is possible to use the big syringe, the syringe or the bicycle pump. The matter is that ticks are extremely picky in sense of the choice of the place of a sting. It is very important for them that it was protected from drafts. Having felt artificially caused wind, the insect begins to worry, weakens a bite and is easily taken by tweezers.

It is dangerous to unscrew a tick fingers: he will seize skin even more strong. If the insect is accidentally crushed, it will increase risk of entering in a wound of an additional infection, besides, it should be taken out a needle in parts.

7. The tick can be implemented under skin and lay eggs

The false statement arose because some confuse ixodic ticks to scabby. The last really are implemented under skin, but carriers of encephalitis use the person and hematothermal animals only as food sources.

8. Repellents protect from mites

The existing antitick-borne means have very low performance. Besides, it is necessary to consider specifics of behavior of an insect: the tick usually seizes clothes (most often in a trouser-leg or a hem of a skirt) or in soft footwear, and repellents apply on open body parts. So use of chemical protective equipment of safety does not guarantee.

9. There are drugs replacing a vaccine

Unfortunately, there are no such drugs today. Besides, administration of immunoglobulins after a sting of a tick in some cases can lead to an aggravation of symptoms of patients.

There are tablets which are also actively propagandized by producers allegedly completely liquidating the virus which got to blood at a sting. According to specialists, they do not provide such action, and unfair advertizing enters buyers into a life-threatening delusion.

10. The encephalitis inoculation is not always effective

Single vaccination protects from an infection only during the next season. To receive durable immunity, it is necessary to pass a revaccination in a year.

The person bitten by a tick gets sick not always. The insect can not be the virus carrier. Sometimes victims have a disease in the latent form which does not have pathological manifestations. The incubation interval of encephalitis makes 7-20 days (at infection through milk – about a week), however meet both fulminant (less than a day), and long (more than 30 days) of a form. Anyway, after walk outdoors it is necessary to examine the body and clothes carefully. In the presence of the stuck tick it is necessary to remove him and as soon as possible to show to the specialist. Emergence in the next days of high temperature, head and muscular pain, drowsiness, nausea, gripes in eyes and other unpleasant symptoms has to become the reason of the urgent address to the doctor.