Peak tick season is underway; get your ticks tested at Upstate
As the Northeast enters peak tick season, Upstate’s Tick Testing Laboratory is back open and accepting ticks for testing. While ticks can be found anytime the weather is above freezing, adult ticks are most active from March to mid-May and from mid-August to November.
The lab accepts ticks from anywhere in the US; testing them for 16 tick-borne pathogens including the bacteria that cause Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the viruses that can lead to Powassan and Tick-borne encephalitis.
Not only can this testing help you determine any potential health risk, but the data can provide helpful information about current tick “hot spots”.
“Each county, zip code, and neighborhood are unique in its tick and tick-borne pathogen prevalence and how it dynamically changes over time. These dynamic changes at the neighborhood level can only be monitored by community-engaged tick testing lab like this program,” explains Dr. Thangamani, head of the Tick Testing Laboratory. “Knowing where people are finding ticks can help educate the public where they are showing up in bigger numbers right now.”
Knowing where to target education can have a public health impact, says Thangamani.
“When we first started testing, the largest number of ticks encountered by humans in Onondaga County were in Green Lakes State Park. After educating the public on how to prevent tick exposure and putting up signage in the park, the number of ticks sent from that area significantly dropped, which is what we want to see. We’re hoping to do the same for other areas around Onondaga County where we’re seeing high numbers of ticks.”
Tick testing can be completed in 3-5 business days, and costs $75 per tick. For Onondaga County residents, half of the fee is subsidized through a collaborative agreement with the County health department, lowering the cost to $37. Visit nyticks.org for more information and to start your submission.
More than 33,000 ticks have been tested since the tick testing program began. About one in three ticks were found to be carrying at least one pathogen.