Summer is coming, and being bitten by mosquitoes has become a new annoyance for people, and many people don't think so, thinking that being bitten by mosquitoes is just a trivial matter. However, it is important to note that the bite of some bugs can be life-threatening, such as "death ticks". So what's the difference between a tick and a normal bug? Why can a tick bite be life-threatening? Let's take a look at this dangerous insect today!
(Ticks removed from pet dogs)
What is a tick?
Ticks, also called dog beans and grass crawlers, like to be found in woods, bushes, and rivers. The larvae, nymphs, male and female adults of ticks all suck blood. The amount of blood sucking of ticks is very large, and it can swell several times to dozens of times after being saturated with blood at each development stage, and the female Ixodes can even reach more than 100 times. For example, some ticks are only the size of a grain of rice when they are not sucking blood, but they can be as big as a soybean when they are not sucking blood.
Ticks secrete anesthetic toxins when biting, so people are sometimes undetectable when bitten, but because the tick's chelicerae and infraoral plate pierce the host's skin at the same time, it can cause local congestion, edema, acute inflammatory reactions, and can also cause secondary infection.
What are the dangers of ticks?
The danger of ticks is mainly due to the fact that ticks carry a variety of viruses that can be transmitted to humans during the blood-sucking process. The bite of an infected tick can cause 81 viral, 31 bacterial and 32 protozoal diseases, including spotted fever, Q fever, forest encephalitis, and hemorrhagic fever. The neurotoxins secreted by the saliva of some ticks during the blood-sucking process can cause muscle paralysis and severe respiratory failure and death of the bitten person, which is called "tick paralysis".
For example, the new bunyavirus is a typical "tick disease" virus. Novel bunyavirus is a new virus discovered in 2010. The virus is transmitted to the human body through the bloodstream of ticks as they suck blood, so detecting the virus in the blood of a person is direct evidence of infection. Once infected with bunyavirus, the case fatality rate of patients is 10-30% higher, because infected people have more fever with progressive thrombocytopenia, so it is also called fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome.
This "tick disease" also has an incubation period, after being bitten by a tick and infected with the virus, it usually develops in about 1-2 weeks, but this time is not completely certain, the shortest may be 2-3 days later, or it may be about a month.
Once the disease occurs, the course of the disease can be divided into three main processes: the febrile phase, the multi-organ failure phase, and the recovery phase. Most people will present with acute fever, body temperature is generally above 38.0 °C, accompanied by chills, loss of appetite, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea and other digestive symptoms in the early stage, some patients have bleeding tendency, manifested as skin petechiae, gingival bleeding, bulbar conjunctival bleeding, a small number of patients are critically ill, can appear consciousness disorders, pulmonary hemorrhage, cerebral hemorrhage, gastrointestinal bleeding, etc., can die due to shock, respiratory failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation and other multi-organ failure. Severe patients often have neurological and psychiatric symptoms, and the prognosis is poor.
How can I prevent tick bites?
The consequences of being bitten by a tick are so severe, so what can we do in our lives to prevent being bitten by a tick?
First of all, people should try to avoid sitting and lying for long periods of time in the environment of the main habitat of ticks, such as grass and woods, and apply repellents to bare skin for several hours. Camping equipment such as clothes and tents are soaked or sprayed with insecticides, such as amethrinase, DEET-containing repellents, etc.
Secondly, when people are doing outdoor activities, especially going to the outdoors to get close to nature, they should still try to wear long sleeves and long pants, tie their trouser legs tightly, do not wear slippers, and apply some insect repellent as appropriate.
(Staff spraying low-toxicity and high-efficiency insecticides)
If you find that the tick is attached to the body and cannot be removed immediately with a tool such as tweezers, the correct way is to go to the nearest regular hospital as soon as possible, and the doctor will disinfect the bite site and perform local anesthesia before removing the tick with tweezers. If you have symptoms such as fever, muscle aches, and headaches, you must see a doctor in time and describe your medical history to your doctor in detail.
Finally, if you can't get to the hospital in time, you can apply alcohol to the tick to make the tick's head relax or die, and then use pointed tweezers to take out the tick, or use cigarette butts and incense sticks to gently scald the exposed part of the tick's body, so that the head slowly withdraws on its own. Pay attention to safety when scalding ticks, and do not pull hard to avoid scratching the skin, or leaving the head of the tick in the skin. After removing the tick, use iodine or alcohol for local disinfection, and observe the physical condition at any time, and go to the hospital immediately if you feel unwell.
(Author: He Zhuolin)
Scientific gatekeeping: Qu Bo, chief physician of the Department of General Surgery of the Yangtze River Shipping General Hospital and adjunct professor of Wuhan University School of Medicine
Source: People's Daily Online, Xinhuanet