JACKSON, Wyo. — Despite having the highest incidence rate of Colorado Tick Fever (CTF) in the U.S., the state of Wyoming historically has not conducted any tick surveillance. That’s now changing, because on Tuesday, April 9, Teton County Weed and Pest (TCWP) received final approval on the first tick surveillance program.
Mikenna Smith, entomologist with TCWP, has been working to develop this program over the past few years. She says the surveillance will entail collecting ticks, identifying the species and testing the ticks for pathogens that cause disease.
The tick collection will be conducted by both TCWP and citizen scientists. Smith says there are a lot of models in other states that utilize citizen scientists to collect tick species. TCWP’s citizen science component will include both passive and active surveillance; for passive surveillance, recreationists who discover a tick on them will send that to TCWP, and for active surveillance, people will follow a standardized protocol into the field for collection.
Smith emphasizes that, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), passive surveillance cannot include ticks that have become embedded in the skin.
Smith says all of the proposed pathogen testing will be done in-house at the TCWP laboratory in Jackson after successful expansion of laboratory capacity over the past few years.
“For us to be able to test in-house and get fast results is really helpful for data collection and management actions,” Smith says.
The program is aimed at addressing gaps in tick research in Wyoming to better provide data for public health and inform people of local risks. Smith tells Buckrail that some questions driving the surveillance include: Which tick species are in Wyoming that are “of medical and veterinary significance?” What are Wyoming ticks infected with and what are the infection rates of the pathogens that are in the ticks? And are some ticks infected with multiple pathogens?
Smith says two past studies have been conducted, both over a decade ago with only a couple hundred samples in each, that put the infection rate of CTF in Teton and Sublette counties at 21%. In other words, the limited data collection suggests one in five ticks in those counties to be infectious, with the potential to come across two infectious ticks per hour in the respective areas.
While Smith is hesitant to put too much weight into these results, she does tell Buckrail that this infection rate is considered “high.”
Smith says CTF virus will be at the forefront of the program’s research, including looking into the “vertical transmission” when a female tick passes a pathogen to her offspring rather than the offspring receiving the pathogen from a host. Blood-fed females will be collected off cattle, after which TCWP will have them lay eggs in an incubator and test the larvae that hatch.
According to the CDC, CTF is a viral disease with no known vaccines or treatments. Symptoms include a fever, chills, headache, body aches and feeling tired, with rare cases experiencing an affected central nervous system with a stiff neck and confusion. The CDC says life-threatening illnesses or deaths due to CTF are rare.
To contribute as a citizen scientist to TCWP’s new program, reach out to Smith at msmith@tcweed.org.
