CDC: Record Number of Tickborne Disease Cases in U.S. Last Year

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 14, 2018 — The number of Americans with tickborne diseases reached a record high of nearly 60,000 in 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Most of those cases (42,743) were Lyme disease. There were 36,000 cases of Lyme disease in 2016, NBC News reported. Other tickborne disease cases in 2017 included: ehrlichiosis (7,718), Rocky Mountain spotted fever (6,248), babesiosis (2,368), tularemia (239), and Powassan virus (33), according to the CDC. The number of reported cases of tickborne diseases last year (60,000) is likely much lower than the actual number.

“The true number of cases is probably 10 times that,” John Aucott, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center and chair of the federal Tickborne Disease Working Group, told NBC News.

A report issued by the working group says that state and federal agencies need to increase funding to track, prevent, and treat tickborne diseases. The working group was created in 2016 and this report is its first.

NBC News Article
CDC Tickborne Disease Surveillance Data Summary
Tickborne Disease Working Group 2018 Report to Congress

Posted: November 2018

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