Washington.- Cases of alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), which causes allergic reactions to red meat triggered by the bite of the “lone star” tick, are increasing in the country since 2010, according to health authorities.
Since then, at least 450,000 cases of the disease have been recorded, whose transmission appears to be linked to tick bites and which causes a potentially lethal hypersensitivity to an oligosaccharide found in most mammalian meats.
The numbers of AGS cases in the country, which occur in the South, the Midwest and the Atlantic coast of the country, have increased substantially, according to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The impact of alpha-gal syndrome in the United States could be substantial given the high percentage of cases in which the syndrome is suspected but go undiagnosed due to symptoms that are neither specific nor consistent,” explained Johanna Salzer, of the CDC and one of the study authors.
The symptoms of alpha-gal, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, appear between three and eight hours after eating red meat and can include hives and itching, swelling of the lips or face, and abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea or vomiting.
The number of people testing positive for alpha-gal rose from 13,371 in 2017 to 18,885 in 2021, the study published by MMWR indicated.
Among people for whom address information was available, the highest prevalence was found in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
“People with putative alpha-gal were predominantly located in areas where the so-called ‘lone star’ tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to have become established or is reported to be present,” the report added.
This presence is greatest in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Suffolk County in New York State.
