溫暖的天氣意味著是時候提醒蜱蟲了

溫暖的天氣意味著是時候提醒蜱蟲了

As warm weather sends people outdoors, some are encountering tenacious pests.

隨著溫暖的天氣讓人們走到戶外，一些人遇到頑強(qiáng)的害蟲。

Forget staying 6 feet apart: Ticks go for blood in the hardest-to-reach places on the human body.

忘了保持6英尺的距離吧:蜱蟲會在人體最難夠到的地方吸血。

Many of those ticks are infected with Lyme disease. The illness, which was first identified in Connecticut in the 1970s, is found in countries across the Northern Hemisphere. It's the most common tick-borne disease in both the United States and Europe.

許多蜱蟲感染了萊姆病。這種疾病最早于20世紀(jì)70年代在康涅狄格州被發(fā)現(xiàn)，現(xiàn)在北半球許多國家都發(fā)現(xiàn)了這種疾病。它是美國和歐洲最常見的蜱傳疾病。

And the area where Lyme disease is found is expanding.

萊姆病被發(fā)現(xiàn)的地區(qū)正在擴(kuò)大。

Lyme disease is on the rise in the United Kingdom, and climate change is projected to worsen the spread of Lyme across northern Europe.

萊姆病在英國呈上升趨勢，氣候變化預(yù)計(jì)將使萊姆病在北歐的傳播更加惡化。

And while it's still too soon to say how bad ticks will be this year, some indicators point to a population surge in the early part of the season in the United States.

雖然說今年蜱蟲會有多嚴(yán)重還為時過早，但一些指標(biāo)表明，美國的蜱蟲數(shù)量將在季節(jié)初期激增。

The tick population is likely to fluctuate throughout the season anyway, said Mather, who is a professor in the department of plant sciences and entomology at the University of Rhode Island. "What we see in real time isn't always a good prognosticator for what could be happening a month or two months from now."

馬瑟是羅德島大學(xué)植物科學(xué)與昆蟲學(xué)系的教授，他說，無論如何，蜱的數(shù)量在整個季節(jié)都有可能波動。“我們實(shí)時看到的情況，并不總是能很好地預(yù)測一兩個月后可能發(fā)生的情況。”

What are the most serious tick-borne illnesses?

最嚴(yán)重的蜱傳疾病是什么?

Worrying about the coronavirus pandemic doesn't mean other threats have gone away.

對冠狀病毒大流行的擔(dān)憂并不意味著其他威脅已經(jīng)消失。

"There are numerous tick-borne pathogens that are on the rise," said Allison Gardner, a medical entomologist and assistant professor of arthropod vector biology at the University of Maine.

醫(yī)學(xué)昆蟲學(xué)家、緬因大學(xué)節(jié)肢動物病媒生物學(xué)助理教授艾莉森·加德納說：“有許多蜱傳播的病原體正在上升。”

Gardner noted that the United States contends with the parasitic infection babesiosis; it's also found in Europe.

加德納指出，美國正在對付巴貝斯蟲病的寄生蟲感染;在歐洲也有。

In Europe, the viral tick-borne encephalitis is a problem, with 3,092 confirmed cases in European Union countries in 2018. There is an effective vaccine against the disease, which can cause fevers, headaches, paralysis and convulsions.

在歐洲，病毒性蜱傳腦炎是一個問題，2018年歐盟國家有3092例確診病例。這種疾病會導(dǎo)致發(fā)燒、頭痛、癱瘓和抽搐，目前有一種有效的疫苗可以預(yù)防這種疾病。

The most common tick-borne danger in both the United States and Europe, however, is still from Lyme disease. And the vast majority of cases may go undetected.

然而，在美國和歐洲，最常見的蜱傳危險仍然來自萊姆病。而且絕大多數(shù)病例可能都沒有被發(fā)現(xiàn)。

Some 30,000 Lyme disease diagnoses are reported to the CDC each year, but the agency estimates that actual cases in the United States may be 10 times higher than that. A 2016 report in the Journal of Public Health estimated 85,000 annual cases of Lyme in Europe.

每年美國疾控中心接到的萊姆病診斷報告約有3萬例，但該機(jī)構(gòu)估計(jì)，美國的實(shí)際病例可能比這個數(shù)字高出10倍?！豆残l(wèi)生雜志》2016年的一份報告估計(jì)，歐洲每年有8.5萬例萊姆病病例。

Stay safe in the outdoors

在戶外要注意安全

Gardner, the University of Maine medical entomologist, spends her days in the field dragging a light-colored cloth through tick habitats. The ticks grab onto the fabric, where their dark bodies show up clearly.

加德納是緬因大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)昆蟲學(xué)家，每天都在野外拖著一塊淺色的織物穿過蜱蟲的棲息地。蜱蟲抓住織物，黑色的身體清晰地顯現(xiàn)出來。

"Light-colored clothing can make it easier to spot the ticks on you," said Gardner, whose work puts her in frequent close contact with the tiny creatures.

“淺色的衣服可以讓你更容易發(fā)現(xiàn)身上的虱子，”加德納說，她的工作使她經(jīng)常與這些小生物密切接觸。

Other ways to protect against ticks include tucking pants into socks. Since ticks crawl up from the ground, this makes it easier to spot them before they slip beneath your clothes.

其他防止蜱蟲的方法還包括把褲子塞進(jìn)襪子里。因?yàn)轵缦x是從地上爬上來的，這使得在它們潛入你的衣服之前更容易發(fā)現(xiàn)它們。