Media reports indicate an elevated presence of ticks throughout the country this year.
But here in North Dakota, so far things are fairly typical.
Amanda Bakken is vector borne disease epidemiologist with the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services. She says HHS has been doing both active and passive surveillance on ticks in the state for the last six weeks.
"So far this year, our ticks are maybe a little down in terms of collection numbers, but otherwise normal. They might be down, probably because of weather related issues in terms of collecting. We've had a lot of windy days, which are typically not when you're going to find a lot of ticks, as well as intermittent rain and fluctuating temperatures."
Bakken says the CDC has a tick bite tracker, which shows some intermittent elevated activity in the northeast and parts of the Midwest. She says there’s also a new North Dakota tick bite tracker, but the preliminary data shows activity to be normal or typical for this time of year.
"Last year we did have increased lyme disease cases, which is probably due in large part due to the weather being slightly cooler and wetter in certain parts of the state, which can certainly aid ticks being more active for longer periods of the season. But at this point, things are pretty on track and looking normal for North Dakota."
Bakken says ticks will be out for the next several months, so residents should wear repellant and check themselves often for ticks.
