Is this a potential health risk to UK geocachers ?

[+gazooks]

This article appeared in the Daily Mail today.

 

Link

 

Health risk to geocachers ?

[+Lost in Space]

 

Health risk to geocachers ?

 

Apparently, a health risk to anyone.............

[wolfshead57]

This is possibly just the mail trying to worry us about more illegal imigrants.

 

[+davy boy]

I seem to get loads of the little blighters in the summer when in shorts but not harmed me so far,just pull them off with my nails,mind you i know a few people who freak out and go to hospital to get them removed,hehe whimps .

[NickPick]

What did the Daily Mail say was the effect on house prices?

 

Edit for sensible response aswell:

 

Ticks can be a problem for things like Lymes disease, but in the same way, people have been known to die from wasp stings.

 

Ticks need to be removed, and you can get tick removal tools which twist them off in the correct way (squeezing them with fingers or tweezers is likely to either leave the head in, or squeeze the contents of the tick back into the wound).

 

As with so many things, dying from a tick bite shouldn't be high on the list of things to worry about.

Edited March 17, 2008 by NickPick

[+PSHAX]

What did the Daily Mail say was the effect on house prices?

 

Edit for sensible response aswell:

 

Ticks can be a problem for things like Lymes disease, but in the same way, people have been known to die from wasp stings.

 

Ticks need to be removed, and you can get tick removal tools which twist them off in the correct way (squeezing them with fingers or tweezers is likely to either leave the head in, or squeeze the contents of the tick back into the wound).

 

As with so many things, dying from a tick bite shouldn't be high on the list of things to worry about.

 

I saw some tick removing tweezers in Millets.. Only a couple of quid.

Also useful for getting the logs out of nano caches!!

 

P.

[+gingerbreadmen]

As with so many things, dying from a tick bite shouldn't be high on the list of things to worry about.

 

It is if you are the one doing the dying!

[wolfshead57]

I should think gingerbreadmen need to worry about foxes more than ticks

[+L8HNB]

This had a good airing in May 07......

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...50&hl=ticks

 

Perhaps these are even nastier

 

H

[+careygang]

The Daily Mail is of course well know for its sensible and un-scaremongering approach to journalism.

For a more official response to this, see this Link.

The Mail's "Hotspots include parts of France, Germany, Italy and Greece, as well as many emerging holiday destinations in Eastern Europe." is not as dramatic as they play it.

For another good website see this link.

[nobby.nobbs]

Lyme's is a serious potential in the New Forest but simple precautions and awareness of the symptoms is perfectly adequate.

 

Several warm winters have increased the numbers of ticks around here.

 

So wear socks and sensible shoes, don't sit in long grass, brush yourself down every now and again.

 

Remove them properly with a tool. watch out for a "bulls eye" rash around any tick bite or the onset of flu symptoms just after getting bitten.

 

The above is by no means an exhaustive list or intended to scare anyone as the actual risk is relatively low but is real.

[+sTeamTraen]

The disease referred to in the article is not Lyme Disease (which, FWIW, is named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut, so there's no possessive). It's Tick-Borne Encephalitis, which is totally different.

 

Lyme is caused by a type of bacterium and, although there's no vaccine (Glaxo made one in the lab but couldn't find any interest from public health systems to commercialise it, somewhat to their surprise), it can be treated - with varying degrees of success - with antibiotics. It is endemic in the UK and much of Western Europe.

 

TBE is caused by a virus and has no effective remedy apart from palliative care. It is found mostly east of the Rhine. The "parts of France" referred to in the article basically means "Alsace". In fact here we are towards the eastern limit for Lyme and the western limit for TBE. UK readers do not need to worry about this (but that won't stop the Daily Mail from trying to scare you, of course.)

 

If I know all this it's because my teenage son was very ill with meningitis/encephalitis symptoms on and off for about 18 months and TBE was one of the two possible diagnoses. The other was a form of viral meningitis. Unfortunately, neither of them should recur, and whatever he had did, so maybe he had both.

 

The TBE virus costs 36 Euros per dose in France and can be ordered from any pharmacy with a doctor's prescription. If I know that it's because I've just had my first two jabs. The third one is planned for a couple of months from now, if they aren't out of stock again (apparently there's only one lab in Europe making it, somewhere in Austria).