RIVM warns of increased tick bites in the spring. Bite cases have increased, especially in the Drenthe region.
The Institute of Public Health and Environment ( RIVM ), affiliated to the Ministry of Health, announced that according to around 80 thousand applications to the institution, tick bites have increased especially in the Drenthe region , and that citizens should be more careful, especially in forest areas.
In a statement on Monday, RIVM noted that according to the applications received via the Tekenradar.nl site, the least number of cases in the country was seen in the Gelderland region and the lowest number of cases in the Zuid Holland region.
Citizens who applied to the Tekenradar site, which was established about 10 years ago, report the region they are in and the cases of tick bites they live.
According to the applications coming to the site, the region with the most tick bites so far is the Gelderland region with 14 thousand 679 cases.
This region is followed by Noord-Brabant with 8 thousand 238 cases and Noord-Holland with 7 thousand 207 cases. However, when looking at tick cases compared to the number of citizens residing in a province, Drenthe comes first with 215 tick bite cases.
In Zuid Holland, where 149 notifications were made per 100,000 people, the least number of cases were reported.
Most tick bites occur during the summer months, especially in June and July. It is stated that approximately 1.5 million cases of tick bites occur in the Netherlands every year .
Stating that Lyme disease is diagnosed in 27 thousand cases of tick bites per year, experts state that the tick bite often creates a red ring or spot on the skin, but in some cases it causes more serious complaints in the nervous system or joints.
Antibiotic treatment is applied in these diseases and can be cured with a short-term treatment, but a longer-term treatment is required in one thousand to one thousand five hundred people every year.
You can visit Tekenradar.nl site to get information about the tick bite, how the tick can be removed from the body and what it can do afterwards.
Photo : Erik Karits – Unsplash