Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance

Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance

Economic Consequences of Deer Overpopulation: New study by New York Medical College Case studies in successful town-wide deer control New aerial deer density survey of Fairfield County Ending Lyme in CT: new data Environment damaged and birds endangered by deer overpopulation High deer numbers spread Lyme: an inconvenient truth Educational Poster now available through members Connecticut homeowners can help limit deer population

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Ticks & Lyme Disease

Article		Author

A Bill to End Lyme Disease: HB 5852
Babesiosis: yet another disease spread by deer ticks		Based on the work of Dr Peter J Krause M.D., Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Hartford and University of Connecticut School of Medicine
County-wide Tick Study with University of New Haven: First year		FCMDMA Press Release 2007
County-wide tick study: second year results 2009		G. Scholl MD
Deer Ticks and Lyme Disease		Kent Haydock and Pat Sesto
Ehrlichiosis: The newer tick-borne disease in town		DOUG HARTLINE, RS Redding Town Health Officer
Eradication of Lyme disease: a real possibility		Georgina Scholl, MD
Excess deer spread Lyme: An Inconvenient Truth		Georgina Scholl, MD
Lyme disease:Council asks Rell to cull deer herd		Maggie Caldwell
Physician Supports Deer Control To Eradicate 'Plague' Of Lyme Disease		John Voket, Newtown Bee
Stamford Health Department		submitted by William Callion
State must reduce deer population		Maggie Shaw, Newtown Lyme Task Force
Tick control options		Patricia Sesto, Town of Wilton
Tick-borne Infections and Co-infections		Rafal Tokarz 2010 paper and Talk by Eva Sapi PhD
To eradicate Lyme disease, cut deer population		Georgina Scholl, MD
U.S. Center For Disease Control Lyme Disease Article		submitted by Phil Palermo

	Examples of bulls eye rashes
“Reducing deer densities to below 10-12 per sq mile has been shown to substantially reduce tick numbers and human Lyme disease.” Kirby C. Stafford III, Ph.D., Vice Director, Chief Entomologist, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, CT Ticks concentrate behind ears on a deer From: American Lyme Disease Foundation web site	“Deer population management must serve as the main tool in any long term strategy to reduce human incidences of Lyme disease.” Dr Sam Telford lll, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases,Tufts University and Visiting Scientist in Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard School of Public Health.

According to the CDC, Lyme disease is the leading cause of all vector-borne illness in the US. During the last twenty years, the annually reported number of adults and children diagnosed with Lyme disease has increased 25 times, reaching 23,305 cases in 2005. However, under-reporting is generally believed to be ten-fold.

Lyme Disease Surveillance in Connecticut

"Connecticut reported 1,788 cases in 2006, mainly from doctors. But what if labs were still reporting? By assuming that labs report in the same proportion as 2002, we're looking at 5,902 cases for 2006."
Yvonne Bokhour and Peter Arno, Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, New York Medical College, Valhalla, N.Y

The number of new cases of physician confirmed Lyme reported to the Connecticut DPH in 2006 was 1,788. But, as discussed in the attached article by Bokhour and Arno, the true number of physician confirmed cases is much higher, for two reasons. First, until 2003 both doctors and labs were required to notify the state Department of Public Health when patients tested positive for Lyme, but since 2003 the state stopped requiring labs to report positive results. In 2002, 4,631 cases were reported. But in 2003, cases fell to 1,403. By assuming that labs report in the same proportion as they did in 2002, the comparable number of cases for 2006 would be 5,902. Second, the CDC tells us in their weekly MMWR report of May 2004 that studies show "that LD cases were underreported by six to 12-fold in some areas where LD is endemic (2,3)". Bokhour and Arno quote that case numbers represent only 10 percent to 20 percent of diagnosed cases. The authors in the attached article write: "assuming conservatively that case reports represent 20 percent of diagnosed cases, Connecticut's 2006 case numbers jump to 29,509".

So for 2006 the reported number of new Lyme cases is 1,788 and the estimated true number of new cases is 29,509.

References

   1. CDC. Case definitions for infectious conditions under public health surveillance. MMWR 1997;46(No. RR-10):20--1.
   2. Meek JI, Roberts CL, Smith EV Jr, Cartter ML. Underreporting of Lyme disease by Connecticut physicians, 1992. J Public Health Manage Pract 1996;2:61--5.
   3. Coyle BS, Strickland GT, Liang YY, Pena C, McCarter R, Israel E. The public health impact of Lyme disease in Maryland. J Infect Dis 1996;173:1260--2. "