MID-HUDSON – Ticks are back in the Hudson Valley, so residents should take precautions against Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and babesiosis.
“Adult ticks become active in the spring as soon as the temperatures start to get above freezing. Nymphal ticks start to appear in May and stay active through mid-summer,” said Alison Kaufman, epidemiologist with the Putnam Health Department. “The nymphs are the culprits that cause most cases of disease because their tiny size makes them harder to find and remove quickly.”
Last year, 466 cases of Lyme disease were reported across Putnam’s six towns, with 54 percent of diagnoses occurring between May and August.
Kaufman added that the seasonality was even more pronounced for anaplasmosis and babesiosis. Seventy-seven percent of the 39 reported cases of anaplasmosis and 79 percent of the 34 reported cases of babesiosis were reported in the same months.
While not every tick carries a disease, those ticks that are infected are known to cause illnesses that can affect one’s health.
Meanwhile, Nathan Burnett, operator of TickZone, a free site that scores tick risk for every town throughout the United States, explained that tick conditions in the Putnam-Dutchess region were currently favorable due to habitat and the area’s forest cover.
TickZone’s risk peak score has Putnam Valley and Kent at 88; followed by Philipstown at 87; Carmel—86, Patterson—85 and Southeast at 84.
In Dutchess County, Hyde Park had the highest peak risk score at 98, followed by Dover, Milan, Pawling, and Fishkill, each at 96.
Other communities in Dutchess scored from 95 (East Fishkill, Pleasant Valley, and Wappingers Falls) to 85 for the Town of North East.
Burnett added that “For county lines: Putnam ranks 12th of New York’s 62 counties on reported Lyme incidence. Dutchess carries a higher rate, 377 cases per 100,000 people, eighth of 62.
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