[pct-l] Lyme disease & lizards

[brick at fastpack.com (Brick Robbins)]

At 01:48 PM 2/27/04, Tangent <tangent@meinfelder.com> wrote:
>At 01:16 PM 2/27/2004 -0800, Joanne Lennox wrote:
>>I am interested in finding out what the incidence of Lyme disease is on
>>various parts of the PCT.

Lyme disease is not much of a problem in California because the blood of a 
common tick host (a lizard) kills Lyme.

See http://arthritis.about.com/library/weekly/aa042198.htm

=== excerpt ===

California health officials have long been both pleased and puzzled by the 
low incidence of Lyme disease in the state despite an abundance of ticks. 
Lane reiterates that eastern regions with higher incidence of Lyme disease 
are areas without fence lizards.

The percentage of infected deer ticks in high Lyme disease areas such as 
Connecticut is 30 to 60 percent. The percentage of black-legged ticks, the 
closely related cousins that carry Lyme disease in California, is only 1 to 
2 percent and only as high as 6 percent in Mendocino county where Lyme 
disease is most prevalent in California.

In California, about one in every 200,000 persons is infected with Lyme 
disease. The rate in Connecticut is 100 times higher.