Single tick bite can pack double pathogen punch
Friday, June 20, 2014 - 12:30
in Biology & Nature
People who get bitten by a blacklegged tick have a higher-than-expected chance of being exposed to more than one pathogen at the same time. "We found that ticks are almost twice as likely to be infected with two pathogens -- the bacterium that causes Lyme disease and the protozoan that causes babesiosis -- than we would have expected," said a professor of biology involved in a recent study.