As weather warms, warnings about Lyme

May 9, 2011, 6:37 a.m. EDT
West Chester Daily Local News 1 JRC 20091109
In retrospect, Jennifer Mankoff, now 37, believes she was infected with Lyme disease either during a trip to Ligonier in 2005 or while hiking in Frick Park in the fall of 2006.
She got a rash, one whose cause was never diagnosed, after the Ligonier trip, and she actually picked a tick off her leg after the hike in Frick Park.
Either way, the Shadyside woman, an associate professor in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, got sick later in 2006.
Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria carried by ticks most commonly referred to as deer ticks, although entomologists now identify them as blacklegged ticks. They have been infected as larvae and nymphs, which feed on birds or small mammals. Adult ticks prefer deer. Any stage can feed on humans, potentially passing on the disease. It is the most common tick-borne illness in North America and Europe, and, said Lyme disease researcher Dr. Andrew J. Nowalk of Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, it is a "devastating disease for patients who have it."
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According to a county-by-county report from the Department of Health, Cameron County in the north-central part of the state had an incidence rate of 267.0 cases per 100,000 residents in 2006-08. To the west, Elk County had an incidence rate of 171.3, while to the south, Clearfield County's rate was 81.4.
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