I found this article through a Lyme blog that stated Mississippi has done a study that demonstrated E. chaffeensis, E. ewingii, B. lonestari, and R. amblyommii in A. americanum. In layman terms, that means that Mississippi has various strand of Lyme being carried by ticks in throughout the state. I also became aware that Mississippi State University did studies a few years ago; one of the researchers was infected with Lyme prior to the study.Why did this article interest me? How is this relevant to me? Well, I grew up in Mississippi, lived near a tall grassy field that I ran through weekly, our dog was always infected with ticks no matter what my father did to get rid of them, and I was always outdoors. As an outdoorsy kid, I was always climbing trees, running through fields, rolling around in the grass. I stayed out late into the night playing hide-and-seek with my friends only to get multiple mosquito bites-yes, you can get Lyme from not only ticks but mosquitoes, gnats, and fleas. I wasn't aware of tick-infected diseases, and truthfully had I know, I would have been too young to be concerned. Later in life, I attended Mississippi State University between 1992-1997, and I wasn't much more careful there as I ran three miles daily through trees, played soccer in the mud, rolled around in the grass during flag football games,etc. Starkville, MS, is very green with beautiful lousiness trees- where our infamous Lyme-infected friends live.One comment was made that Mississippi may have so many ticks that carry various strands of Lyme and co-infections that it may become know as the "second Lyme Connecticut."Here is an article via Mississippi State University.
SDetection of vector-borne agents in lone star ticks, Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae), from Mississippi.
Department of Basic Science, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA.
Abstract
In this study, we evaluated Amblyomma americanum (lone star tick) in Mississippi for the presence of Ehrlichia chaffeensis, causative agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis; Ehrlichia ewingii, causative agent of human and canine granulocytic ehrlichiosis; Borrelia lonestari, putative agent of southern tick-associated rash illness; Francisella tularensis, the agent of tularemia; and Rickettsia spp., particularly R. amblyommii, a
SDetection of vector-borne agents in lone star ticks, Amblyomma americanum (Acari: Ixodidae), from Mississippi.
Abstract
In this study, we evaluated Amblyomma americanum (lone star tick) in Mississippi for the presence of Ehrlichia chaffeensis, causative agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis; Ehrlichia ewingii, causative agent of human and canine granulocytic ehrlichiosis; Borrelia lonestari, putative agent of southern tick-associated rash illness; Francisella tularensis, the agent of tularemia; and Rickettsia spp., particularly R. amblyommii, a