Barnstable County, MA Tickology Project - 2018, 20 Sep 2018

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From YouTube: Tickology: Tick Testing

Description

Part 9 of the Tickology video project.

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Hi I'm larry dapsis, I'm the entomologist with cape cod, cooperative extension and.

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In this segment, I'm going to show you how easy and how important it is to send.

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A tick to college, so I've got my computer here we're about to order a.

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Tick report, so let's go to work alright, so what I've basically done? The.

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Start this process out is we go to the website for the laboratory of medical.

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Zoology at umass amherst, you just go to tick report comm and that's where I am.

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Right now, all right- this is the homepage for tick report comm and before we place.

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Our order, I want to point out just a couple features here on this in the.

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Lower right corner there's a red circle, and that is a chat button. So if you run.

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Into any problems at all, you just go to the chat type, your question or describe.

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Your problem- and they want it to this thing very, very carefully. The other.

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Thing is up here: there's a link to statistics. Now the laboratory keeps.

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Every single data point that's generated when people sending in ticks for testing.

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From basically all over the world and in the database right now, there's almost.

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45,000 ticks so what you can do is go to select a location, so massachusetts put.

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In a zip code, so I'll put in barnstable and any species, a tick, we'll look for.

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Our friend, the deer, tick and any pathogen and basically bingo, there's 56.

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Ticks that matched our criteria and we can look at what the percentage of.

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Infection is for ticks in this particular town. So it's an interesting.

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Way to kind of characterize: what's the exposure risk in a certain region, so.

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When you click place your order, you come to this page, let's get started so what.

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I've done already is I put in my contact information, my name, my email address, my.

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Phone number: a notification: I want to get my tick report by email.

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Where did you hear about us? I've used these guys before I've sent 4000 tix to.

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College in my seven years and there's a terms & conditions, button and basically.

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What they're saying is that this is not to provide. This is not medical advice.

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Per se, this is not a substitute for talking with your primary caregiver.

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About you know having a tick bite and what potentially might be going along.

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With you, so you basically accept that move on and.

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We're gonna place our order all right. So now we're gonna choose what package we.

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Want there are three different ones we can choose from there's a standard dna.

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Package that would test for the basic panels for the agents that cause lyme.

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Disease by bz, osis, anaplasmosis and relapsing fever. What I'm going to pick.

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Is the standard dna package, but I'm gonna include the rna test and that.

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Would cover powassan virus and we know we've had clausen virus here on the cape.

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And I'm kind of interested in seeing what this tick might be carrying so then.

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We go to next and how would we like to test how many ticks well, we just have.

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One adult female deer tick: um I'm going to indicate this for the purposes of.

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This exercise it was found on me male host age, sixty to catch the skin. Yes was.

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There a rash, no part where the tick was attached, we're gonna say lower leg. They.

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Ask you for an approximate time with how many hours a tick was attached now, I'm.

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Indicate, I think, was on me for a day and what date was two tick removed. So we.

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Just scrolled to this calendar, I'm gonna, say yesterday, president rash. No.

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Additional notes: no so we go to next and basically how.

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We're gonna pay for this, and I'm gonna indicate that I'm gonna pay for this by.

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Cheque and then we just click on complete order, so it generates a work.

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Order number and you write that down just put that on a piece of paper, so we.

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Got the work order number in the baggie with the tick just kind of roll, that up.

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Put an envelope with the check will mail this off today. They should have it by.

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Tomorrow and we should have our tick report in about two days.

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So we've received a tick from larry depp says who sent it from cape cod. I'm going.

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To open his envelope and take the tick out so that I can identify it before it.

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So I need to get the tip out of the bat all right now that the tick is under the.

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Microscope we can actually identify what type of ticket is different, ticks pose.

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Different risks because they carry different pathogens, so I can see that.

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This is an adult female deer tick and it's been feeding for some time.

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So I'm going to take a picture of the dorsal side right now and then we can.

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Upload those images to the tick report.

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And then I'm gonna flip the tick over.

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And take a picture of the ventral side, which has more identifying features that.

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We can use to determine what type of ticket is.

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Now that the tick's been identified as a deer tick, we can put it into its tube.

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And get it ready for testing.

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All right spend two business days. The laboratory guarantees three business.

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Days or less and we have an email with our report- let's go check it out all.

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Right so let's open this thing up and see what we have so we click on private.

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Tick report, and here we go so on the right hand, side we have just to make.

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Sure it's our report. We have all of our correct contact: information, yeah, okay. I.

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Look very good and one of the things they do is stage. They send us back.

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Pictures of the tick from the top side and on the bottom side- and this tick has.

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Been feeding for its partially fed, so this tick was feeding for at least 24.

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It's not 48 hours, plenty of time to transmit any of these pathogens and the.

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Headline on this, is it's not just about lyme anymore, we're up to five different.

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Pathogens that this deer tick can transmit all right. So here's our data.

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This tested positive for beryllium board or fri. That's the pathogen that causes.

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Lyme disease and if this tickles attached to me for 24 to 48 hours, that's.

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Plenty of time for transmission, this tick was also infected with babesia. That.

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Causes babbies iosys. It was negative on powassan, which is a good thing.

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All right so now we've seen our data. Let's talk a little bit about what this.

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Means it tested negative for powassan virus.

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That's a good thing: powassan can be very, very serious. It's.

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Fatal in about 10% of the cases, and since we have found powassan infected.

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Ticks on cape cod from falmouth all the way out to truro. This is why I was.

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Particularly interested in that pathogen, the other reason is that the.

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Transmission time for powassan isn't 48 hours, it's 15 minutes. So now we have two.

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Positives one for the agent that causes lyme and the other agent that causes.

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Babbys eyo psious, so we have this infection, and this is something that we.

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Find very interesting and we're trying to raise awareness in the medical.

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Community in the general public that last year, 2017 of all the ticks that.

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Were tested from cape cod residents, 13% of more co-infected, meaning they were.

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Packing two pathogens, three, sometimes even four pathogens, and you can come.

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Down with more than one of these diseases at the same time, so for me as a.

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Potential patient: these are very good data. I have hard data of what I was.

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Potentially exposed to now it doesn't mean I'm going to get sick, but it's some.

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Future point: if I'm not feeling so good and I'm talking to my primary caregiver.

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I can show them these data and for the doctor now it provides maybe some.

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Guidelines of what they should be looking for to give their patient of.

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Full and correct evaluation, so we think it's potentially a good diagnostic tool.

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For the medical community, so I'm very happy having these hard data in hand and.

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If I'm moving forward and and I'm still feeling pretty good, I I know that I've.

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Got a service behind me that if I should ever get a tick bite in the future and.

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We should all think about prevention. As the thing we should focus on the most.

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Because what I tell people in my general public speaking, is that if you get a.

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Tick bite you not feeling so good and walk into a doctor's office. The outcome.

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Is not certain, and that should be kind of a scary thought so, with this.

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Information in mine as a service, and it's now still being subsidized by cape.

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Cod health care- we did have a discount applied to this. It was sixty-five.

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Dollars versus a hundred and fifty dollar tests, so very good value for the.

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Data so with that state tick safe. So this is my contact information.

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I always look forward to speaking with you or addressing your emails and we'd.

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Certainly like to thank cape cod healthcare for their financial support.

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For this project.