The infectious disease specialist told about the danger of contracting encephalitis after a tick bite

Infectious disease specialist Elena Meskina said on Monday, April 6, that a tick can cause various dangerous diseases such as encephalitis, borreliosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, tularemia and typhus. According to the specialist, any changes in the state of health after a tick bite are a reason to contact a medical institution.

"There can be a serious allergic reaction to a bite, which manifests itself in the first three days. As for infectious diseases, the incubation period can reach up to three months," she stressed in an interview with the "Paragraph".

The infectious disease specialist warned that encephalitis and borreliosis are dangerous because there is no specific treatment for them – only symptomatic. In the case of Lyme disease, a neglected condition on the background of a late visit to a doctor is fraught with inflammation of the heart — myocarditis — and joint damage.

Meskina said that vaccination against encephalitis is carried out in three stages with an interval of one year between the first and the last. Stable immunity is formed two weeks after the second dose, which is administered one month after the first vaccination.

"You can only protect yourself with vaccination. In the Moscow region, it makes sense to get vaccinated only in the Taldomsky and Dmitrovsky districts. Vaccination is recommended for travelers who travel to areas where there is a lot of tick-borne encephalitis. These are Siberia, the Far East and the north of Russia," said the doctor.

In turn, biologist and naturalist Ilya Gomyranov noted that as a preventive measure against tick attacks, it is recommended to wear light-colored clothes for walks, since the parasite can be detected faster on such a fabric. Also, a headdress and closed clothes with long sleeves, trousers tucked into socks, will help protect against parasites.

Ticks do not like pungent odors, especially essential oils: citrus, lavender, geranium. Some sprays use pyrethroids, insecticides that are deadly to arthropods. Upon contact with a substance on clothing, the tick is paralyzed and it falls off. Acaricidal repellents with a high content of pyrethroids are the most effective method of protection against ticks.

In addition, ticks prefer secluded places.: they hide under elastic bands, love the armpits, groin area, the space between the buttocks, the area behind the ears.

Children are at risk because they are more mobile, have thinner skin, and are small in stature.

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On the same day, the Childhood NICKNAME reminded that if the tick has already stuck to the child's skin, the main task is to remove it as quickly as possible, but carefully. It is best to use a special curved tweezers or a pharmacy twist for this purpose. Be sure to treat the bite site with alcohol, iodine, or any available antiseptic after the procedure. 360.ru .

The day before, internist Svyatoslav Krupenin warned that popular folk methods of removing ticks - pouring oil or kerosene treatment — are ineffective and can lead to complications, RT reports.

The ineffectiveness of the methods is related to the tick's physiology, it breathes through spiracles located behind the fourth pair of legs, and applying oil or alcohol around the insect's head does not block its access to air and will not force it to crawl out, the website says. kp.ru .

On March 19, biologist Dmitry Safonov, speaking about the spread of mutant ticks in the Volgograd, Rostov and Astrakhan regions, described their appearance. According to him, the legs of arachnids, also found in Stavropol, Krasnodar Territory, Kalmykia and the republics of the Caucasus, are covered with stripes, which is why they are also called zebras. In addition, representatives of the Hyalomma species are significantly larger than their ordinary relatives.

In turn, Mikhail Alekseev, a leading researcher at the disinsection department (with the entomology laboratory) of the Institute of Disinfection of the Federal Scientific Center for Hygiene named after Erisman of Rospotrebnadzor, said that mutant ticks would not be able to survive in the conditions of the capital region, the Moscow City News agency reports.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.