The incidence of tick-borne disease in the United States is increasing at an alarming rate, officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say. They call on public health and biomedical researchers to double down on efforts to better understand the pathogenesis of tick-borne illnesses and to develop improved strategies for prevention and management.
Citing a report released earlier this year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicating that the number of tick-borne diseases reported in the United States has more than doubled in the last 13 years, Catharine I. Paules, MD, from the Office of the Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues suggest this is a conservative estimate.