Maryland Residents are at High Risk of Lyme Disease

Living in Frederick, MD, and owning a pest control company that offers to kill ticks that carry Lyme Disease, we have heard multiple stories about people getting Lyme Disease in the area. We meet customers who appear to be permanently disabled because of the Lyme Disease that infected them. Many experts hypothesize that most people get Lyme Disease in their own backyard and that treating your yard in the spring and fall will go a long way to eliminating deer ticks in your yard.  A story published in USA today on February 3, 2012 reveals that researchers at Yale University have concluded that Maryland is among the states with the highest risk of Lyme Disease. The researchers canvassed large areas of the country from 2004 to 2007.  According to the article the researchers map shows “a clear risk of Lyme disease across much of the Northeast, from Maine to northern Virginia. Researchers also identified a distinct high-risk region in the upper Midwest, including most of Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and a sliver of northern Illinois.”

Other interesting findings include: “More than 90 percent of those cases were in 12 states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. (emphasis added)”; and “About 1 in 5 ticks collected were infected — more than researchers expected — and that percentage was fairly constant across geographic areas, she said. Researchers had expected the infection rate to vary. (emphasis added)” This study is an important contribution to understanding where Lyme Disease was the biggest threat to public health in 2004-2007, and is and will be a threat in the future. The lead researcher indicates that the places that were at high risk would not change, except that places that were considered emerging threats may have increased their risk. People who are infected by  a Lyme Disease infected tick, and aren’t treated timely, “can develop arthritis, meningitis and some other serious illnesses.”