Abstract
Cases of tick-borne diseases, including spotted fever rickettsioses, borreliosis, babesiosis, anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis, in the United States and territories have more than doubled from 2004 to 2016 and account for 77% of all vector-borne disease reports. In an effort to inform control efforts, the presence of tick-borne pathogens and their vectors was assessed in a recreational park in Walker County, Texas. Here we report data from questing ticks collected on three dates from June 2017 to June 2018. The majority of ticks collected were Amblyomma americanum (96.69%) followed by three additional tick species: Dermacentor variabilis (2.59%), Ixodes scapularis (0.52%), and A. maculatum (0.21%). Ticks were pooled and tested for molecular evidence of bacterial and viral pathogens, respectively. All of the 68 pools of A. americanum had molecular evidence of the spotted fever group rickettsia, Rickettsia amblyommatis. Additionally, six (8.82%) of the A. americanum pools contained sequences matching Ehrlichia chaffeensis, the pathogen responsible for human monocytotropic ehrlichiosis, and 11 (16.18%) for E. ewingii. Three of the A. americanum pools demonstrated evidence of Borrelia lonestari. The presence of etiologic agents of known human disease in this study merits the continued surveillance efforts of ticks and their pathogens in areas where they could pose risks to public health.
Highlights
Tens-of-thousands of tick-borne diseases are reported to the CDC by state health departments in the United States annually [1]
Four tick species were identified: Amblyomma americanum (96.69%), Dermacentor variabilis (2.59%), Ixodes scapularis (0.52%), and A. maculatum (0.21%) (Table 1)
Our data indicate the presence of known bacterial pathogens as well as bacteria of unknown human consequence in a Texas state park
Summary
Tens-of-thousands of tick-borne diseases are reported to the CDC by state health departments in the United States annually [1]. Because only a fraction of illnesses are reported, this number does not represent the actual number of cases of tick-borne disease [2]. This under-reporting is unfortunate, as ticks are vectors for a wide array of bacterial, protozoan, and viral pathogens causing such diseases as Lyme borreliosis, spotted fever rickettsioses, anaplasmosis, tularemia, ehrlichioses, babesiosis, and the recently emerging viruses: Heartland (HRTV), Powassan (POWV) and Bourbon (BRBV). The relative abundance of ticks and the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens were identified to provide data to target vector and disease control. The most common tick to parasitize humans in the southern United
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