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23 April 2019 A 4-Yr Survey of the Range of Ticks and Tick-Borne Pathogens in the Lehigh Valley Region of Eastern Pennsylvania
Marten J. Edwards, James C. Russell, Emily N. Davidson, Thomas J. Yanushefski, Bess L. Fleischman, Rachel O. Heist, Julia G. Leep-Lazar, Samantha L. Stuppi, Rita A. Esposito, Louise M. Suppan
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Abstract

Questing ticks were surveyed by dragging in forested habitats within the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania for four consecutive summers (2015–2018). A high level of inter-annual variation was found in the density of blacklegged tick nymphs, Ixodes scapularis Say, with a high density of host-seeking nymphs (DON) in summer 2015 and 2017 and a relatively low DON in summer 2016 and 2018. Very few American dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis Say) and Ixodes cookei Packard were collected. Lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum L.) and longhorned ticks (Haemaphysalis longicornis Neumann) were not represented among the 6,398 ticks collected. For tick-borne pathogen surveillance, DNA samples from 1,721 I. scapularis nymphs were prepared from specimens collected in summers 2015–2017 and screened using qPCR, high resolution melting analysis, and DNA sequencing when necessary. The overall 3-yr nymphal infection prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi was 24.8%, Borrelia miyamotoi was 0.3%, Anaplasma phagocytophilum variant-ha was 0.8%, and Babesia microti was 2.8%. Prevalence of coinfection with B. burgdorferi and B. microti as well as B. burgdorferi and A. phagocytophilum variant-ha were significantly higher than would be expected by independent infection. B. burgdorferi nymphal infection prevalence is similar to what other studies have found in the Hudson Valley region of New York, but levels of B. microti and A. phagocytophilum variant-ha nymphal infection prevalence are relatively lower. This study reinforces the urgent need for continued tick and pathogen surveillance in the Lehigh Valley region.

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
Marten J. Edwards, James C. Russell, Emily N. Davidson, Thomas J. Yanushefski, Bess L. Fleischman, Rachel O. Heist, Julia G. Leep-Lazar, Samantha L. Stuppi, Rita A. Esposito, and Louise M. Suppan "A 4-Yr Survey of the Range of Ticks and Tick-Borne Pathogens in the Lehigh Valley Region of Eastern Pennsylvania," Journal of Medical Entomology 56(4), 1122-1134, (23 April 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjz043
Received: 11 January 2019; Accepted: 11 March 2019; Published: 23 April 2019
KEYWORDS
anaplasmosis
babesiosis
Lyme disease
surveillance
tick
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