Walks in the forest can be conducive to tick bites, leading to a risk of transmission of Lyme disease. How to guard against it?
While spring and long weekends are conducive to walks in the forest, the period is also associated with the activity of ticks, these parasitic mites that live in wooded and planted areas. Ticks are known to be able to transmit Lyme disease to people they bite.
Being bitten by a tick does not mean automatic transmission of Lyme disease, however, and the percentage of infected ticks in France varies from 0 to 20% depending on the region and the season, explains Inrae, a public research institute specializing in agriculture, on son site.
Lyme disease is associated, in the most advanced cases, with skin, neurological, joint, cardiac, ophthalmological or cognitive disorders. How to protect yourself from tick bites and avoid potential infection?
• Equip yourself adequately
Virginie Renaud, volunteer for the France Lyme association, advises at the microphone of BFMTV to “gear well before going out”. For a walk in the forest, she recommends taking a hat because ticks can “fall from trees”. Tuck your pants into your socks also helps prevent these mites from sneaking up your legs.
More generally, Public Health France, an establishment dependent on the Ministry of Health, recommended cover up with long clothes and stay on the paths avoiding brush, ferns and tall grass. Repellents can also be sprayed on clothing to ward off ticks.
• Thoroughly check your skin after an outing
These gestures do not guarantee an absence of sting. “After a nature outing, carefully inspect your body, in particular the armpits, the folds of skin, the scalp, the back of the ears and the neck”, therefore recommends the National Office of Forests on son site.
Inrae also stresses the importance of being precise in this inspection, because “a tick in the nymph stage measures only 1 to 3 mm”.
• What to do in case of a sting?
After a tick bite, the mite must be extracted “as quickly as possible” without applying any product to it, as this could cause it to regurgitate, explains Health Insurance on son site. You can do this using a tick remover, sold in pharmacies. In case of failure on the first attempt, “do not start again” and “ask your pharmacist or doctor for advice”, recommends Health Insurance (Ameli).
After removing the tick, disinfect the skin and monitor the bitten area for a month. “If you see an inflammatory red plaque appearing that extends, between 3 and 30 days after the bite, you must consult a doctor because it is erythema migrans, a symptom of Lyme disease”, warns Ameli.
