The iHeart Community Calendar

Save the Date A public forum by Dr. Stephen Rich of University of Massachusetts Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases: Preventing Lyme and Other Tick-borne Disease Ticks are second only to mosquitoes as transmitters of human disease. They harbor and transmit various pathogens, including viruses and bacteria, to humans and animals. A well-known and increasingly prevalent tick-borne disease in central New York in recent years is Lyme disease. In Oswego County, we saw more than 30 times increased in confirmed Lyme disease cases among our residents from 2009 to 2017. Ticks do not jump or fly. They sit on grass or in brush or hide deep in the fur of wild animals and wait for opportunities to crawl to human and domestic animals. The best personal protection against tick-borne disease is to prevent tick bites. On May 23, the Oswego County Health Department will host Dr. Stephen M. Rich, Professor of Microbiology and Director of the Laboratory of Medical Zoology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Rich is a respected expert on ticks and tick-borne diseases. He will present a Public Forum on “Ticks and Tick-borne Disease: Preventing Lyme and other Tick-borne Disease” in Oswego County. Dr. Rich is a native of Watertown, NY, attended Immaculate Heart Central High School and earned a B.S. in Biology at St. Lawrence University. He went on to post-graduate study at the University of Vermont (M.S.) and Harvard University, and earned a PhD at the University of California (Irvine). He has more than 50 publications on disease-causing microbes transmitted by ticks and mosquitoes. He has received numerous awards for his research accomplishments. He is a recognized authority on ticks and tick-borne disease, including Lyme disease. His laboratory has revolutionized tick-borne disease surveillance and risk assessment with the crowd-sourced TickReport testing program. Dr. Rich will provide an overview of the hazards and risks associated with ticks in plain language. Although the risk of Lyme and other diseases has increased since the first reports in the 1970s and the list of germs transmitted by these ticks has grown long, there are ways of significantly reducing exposures to these diseases. Dr. Rich will explain these hazards and describe appropriate personal protective measures that can greatly reduce risk. We are fortunate to have him to spend time with us while he is in the area visiting friends and family. His presentation is open to the public with ample opportunity for questions from the audience. The forum will be held in the evening of May 23, 2019 Location: TBD Please follow up with the County Press Release