Recently, spring is shining in various parts of our province,
Citizens and friends have also opened the mode of outings.
Kite flying, tent pitching, outdoor barbecue, etc
It's a lot of fun.
As the temperature warms up, flies, mosquitoes and other pests have begun to recover with people's activities, and we will also prepare some protective measures to avoid their harassment when outing in the wild, but there is a kind of insect that is particularly easy to ignore, and it is our protagonist today - "ticks".
They are juvenile ticks, nymphae, and adult ticks
Why do ticks deserve so much attention?
Because it is very "powerful", it can carry more than 80 kinds of viruses, more than 10 kinds of bacteria, more than 20 kinds of rickettsia, more than 30 kinds of protozoa and other pathogens, and is compared to the "Pandora's box" that spreads pathogens.
Many people think that ticks are insects like flies and mosquitoes, but in fact, ticks are not insects, but are arthropods belonging to the arachnida, like spiders and mites. The most obvious difference between it and insects is that adult ticks have four pairs of legs, while insects have only three pairs. The life cycle of a tick can be divided into four stages, egg, larva, nymph, and adult, it is worth noting that the larvae of ticks have only three pairs of legs, while nymphs and adults have four pairs of legs.
The tick is a blood-sucking arthropod, and in order to grow, it will constantly look for a host during its life cycle to suck blood, suck blood, suck blood... While changing the host's bloodfeeding, it also spreads the disease in this way.
▲ Mouthpiece
Before sucking blood, the body size may have been the size of a sesame seed
After sucking blood, it can grow dozens or even hundreds of times... Bigger, bigger, bigger.....
The tick has special receptors at the end of its first pair of feet that sense host heat or carbon dioxide. It will generally find a relatively high position, such as lying on the tip of grass or a tree, once a person or animal passes by, quickly hook up, crawl to the body to bite and suck blood.
▲A tick lying on the grass waiting for its prey
They also like to bite in areas where the skin is thin and not easy to find, such as the scalp, neck, and behind the ears.
▲Ticks embedded in animal skin
Ticks mainly live in the wild, such as mountainous areas, suburbs, forests, pastoral areas, etc., especially in areas where cattle and sheep graze are also relatively high. According to the monitoring data of our province in recent years, tick activities have been monitored in Guangyuan, Neijiang, Panzhihua, Ganzi Prefecture, Aba Prefecture and other places.
In outdoor activities, you can wear long-sleeved clothes, hats, tighten the cuffs, neckline, and trouser legs, and apply some DEET-containing repellents (not recommended for infants under 3 years old) on bare skin, which has a certain protective effect.
If you find that you have been bitten by a tick, you should seek treatment at the nearest hospital immediately. If you are far away from the hospital and cannot get to the hospital in time, you can take the following steps to deal with it yourself:
Look closely and find the area of the tick's head
In general, the mouth of a tick is embedded in the skin, and the trunk part remains outside the skin.
Use forceps to pinch the tick closest to the skin
Remember not to pinch the tick's abdomen, as it will cause it to inject saliva or blood into your skin, and don't try to pinch the tick with your fingers, as the finger contact surface is too large and can easily squeeze into the tick's abdomen, increasing the risk of infection.
Pull it out slowly with a more constant force
Do not writhe, jerk or swing when pulling the tweezers, as the tick's mouth will easily be torn off and left in the skin. If you can't avoid tearing off the mouth, try removing it with forceps, and if a small amount of remains deep in the skin that cannot be removed, you can temporarily bandage the wound before going to the hospital for treatment.
After removing the tick with alcohol or
Iodophor and other cleaning and disinfection
If there is no disinfectant, it can also be cleaned with warm water and soap, and the bite and hands should be cleaned at the same time.
Note: If you start developing a rash or fever within a few weeks of clearing the tick on your own, see your doctor and tell your doctor when the tick bite will occur, where it will be located, and where the tick is most likely to stick.
Source: Sichuan CDC