What tests should be taken after a tick bite?

The risk of contracting infectious diseases that are transmitted by insects is quite high, even if the tick was removed in the shortest time and could not penetrate deeply. These insects are carriers of various infections that pose a danger to human life, so experts recommend that after the tick is removed, send it to a laboratory study.

It is worth noting that a person after a bite does not always get infected, even if the tick is a vector of any infection, however, prevention in any case will not be superfluous.

The most correct method to establish the presence of an infection is to pass tests after a tick bite.

To detect infection, it is necessary to donate blood, but not earlier than 10 days after the bite. The most common infections that can be transmitted with a tick bite are encephalitis and borreliosis.

Tick-borne encephalitis is the most dangerous disease that these insects carry. Urgent preventive measures to prevent the development of encephalitis should be carried out in the first 24 hours after the bite, usually for this purpose use immunoglobulin (used in the event that after a bite was no more than three days).

If time is lost or there are contraindications, antiviral drugs are used, which according to some data are effective, but no studies have been conducted in this area.

Do not worry if a person has an inoculation against the disease, but the risk of infection with other infections carried by insects remains high.

Tick borreliosis is not less serious disease, which usually occurs in a latent form, but with the development of a chronic process often leads to disability.

Urgent preventive measures are to take 200 mg of doxycycline (except for pregnant women and children under 8 years of age), but all without exception, after the bite, antibodies to tick-borne borreliosis are prescribed.

The disease at the beginning of its development can be treated well, usually redness appears on the site of a bite in 2-3 days after infection.

Hemorrhagic fever is of two kinds - Crimean and Omsk.

Crimean fever is singly detected mainly in steppe regions (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Crimea, Southern Kazakhstan, Taman peninsula, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria), in habitats of ixodid ticks.

Omsk fever was first detected in the inhabitants of lakeside villages in Siberia, the Barabinsk steppe.

Today, the infection is rarely detected in the Novosibirsk, Kurgan, Orenburg, Tyumen, and Omsk regions, it is possible that the infection can occur in the surrounding regions (Altai, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Northern Kazakhstan).

Hemorrhagic nephrosis nephritis is detected in Asian and European countries both as isolated cases, and in the form of mass outbreaks. The source of infection are the gamma mites, which live in the tundra, forests, steppes.

What tests should I take after a tick bite?

After a tick bite, the tests are given no earlier than ten days (before this time in the blood nothing can be identified).

Approximately ten days after the date of the bite, a blood test is performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify the encephalitis virus and Borrelia bacteria.

After fourteen days, blood is surrendered to detect antibodies to the encephalitis virus, in which case it is necessary to report the date of vaccination against encephalitis (if it was conducted).

After 3-4 weeks, blood is shed for the detection of antibodies to borreliosis.