AUGUSTA — The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention urges Maine residents and visitors to take precautions to make tick prevention a “big deal” this month.
Gov. Janet Mills has again proclaimed May Lyme Disease Awareness Month; this year’s theme is “Little tick, big deal.”
Preventing tick bites is the best way to keep from getting a tickborne disease. Deer ticks in Maine can carry the germs that cause diseases in people and animals. The most common tickborne diseases in Maine include Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and babesiosis. Other tickborne diseases found in Maine are hard tick relapsing fever and Powassan virus disease.
Ticks live in wooded, leafy and shrubby areas, and deer ticks have been found in all 16 counties of Maine. They are active, so anyone spending time outdoors should take steps to limit their exposure to ticks. Health care providers reported a record 2,943 cases of Lyme disease and seven cases of Powassan to the Maine CDC in 2023.
The University of Maine Cooperative Extension Tick Lab offers tick identification at no charge to Maine residents. The Tick Lab also offers testing of ticks for infection to Maine residents for a fee of $20. Testing can take up to three days and should be used for surveillance purposes only and not for diagnosis, since finding a tick on one’s person, even if it was attached, does not necessarily mean that any germs have been transmitted.
Contact a health care provider for concerns about tickborne illnesses.
Find more information at ticks.umaine.edu and maine.gov/lyme.
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