Plasencia (Cáceres) (EFE).- The National Association of Environmental Health Companies (Anecpla) has warned that this week’s extreme heat wave will “trigger” the plague of ticks, which has become one of the most dangerous from Spanish territory.
In a note, the association has stressed that “the threat is served” with populations that multiply “at the speed of gunpowder with the heat” and with a high capacity for the transmission of potentially fatal zoonoses, such as Crimean hemorrhagic fever. Congo, Lyme disease or transmitted encephalitis, to name just a few.
“Climate change, with its progressive increase in temperatures, is not only extending the reproductive season of these arthropods (spring begins earlier and autumn ends later each time), but it is also accelerating their metabolism, so that are reproduced more times in a longer space of time”, as detailed by the general director of Anecpla, Jorge Galván.
Galván has revealed that this is precisely what is going to happen this week of heat wave: “that the populations of ticks are going to multiply exponentially in certain areas.”
Two species of concern in Spain
Although there are many species of ticks, in Spain two of them are of particular concern, which are of special health interest: those of the genus Hyalomma and those of the genus Ixodes.
“The first of them is the main transmitter vector of the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, while the second is involved in the transmission of a wide variety of pathogens of clinical-veterinary importance, among which is the virus of tick-borne encephalitis and the Borrelia bacterium, which causes Lyme disease”, explained the CEO.
For all these reasons, from ANECPLA they have called for “extreme precautions” of the general population when going out into the field and for the Public Administrations to increase the actions aimed at controlling this arthropod given its skyrocketing increase.
Likewise, it has indicated that the presence of ticks is less and less confined to the countryside and is spreading more and more through city parks and gardens, where they can come into contact with mammals that act as reservoirs: rabbits, squirrels or rodents.
“It is essential that the Administrations allocate resources to this aspect of growing health importance, delegating its management to Environmental Health professionals”, defended Galván.
