Photo By Melissa Buckley | Spc. Ricardo Fagundez, a General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital Preventive...... read more read more
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. — While most people try to avoid ticks, some Fort Leonard Wood Soldiers are searching for them.
“Tick dragging is a method we use to collect ticks in order to determine if an area needs to be sprayed with pesticides,” said Staff Sgt. Bria Pridgen, NCO in charge of Environmental Health for General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital’s Department of Public Health.
Pridgen said she is scared of insects, but she faces her fear to collect ticks because she thinks her job makes a positive difference to people on Fort Leonard Wood.
“What we do here is extremely important. I know the proper precautions to take to limit my exposure to ticks, but not everybody serving, living or visiting post has that education. It is my job to get out here and do the hard part to make sure everyone else stays healthy,” Pridgen said. “I like to help others. That is why I joined the Army and chose this line of work. Everything we do in Public Health is to better the overall wellbeing of everyone else.”
Pridgen said to perform a tick drag they pull sheets of white cloth across a “suitable habitat,” such as woods or grasslands.
“We will walk at a moderate pace through the environment ensuring that as much of the drag cloth as possible remains in contact with the ground and vegetation. Every 40 to 50 paces, we will check our clothing and the tick drag for ticks,” Pridgen explained. “We then remove any ticks that we find with forceps and place them in a vial with the location name.”
The Environmental Health team uses a digital application to log grid coordinates of the location, photos of the location, as well as how many ticks were found there.
“The ticks we collect give us a snapshot of what type of ticks are in the location, as well as if the amount warrants a pesticide spray. We also send the ticks off for testing of tick-borne illnesses,” Pridgen said.
Spc. Ricardo Fagundez, a GLWACH Preventive Medicine specialist, said there are four types of ticks his team usually finds on post — the American dog tick, blacklegged deer tick, brown dog tick and Lone Star tick.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ticks spread bacteria, viruses and parasites through the process of feeding that cause human diseases.
Tick-borne diseases are also known as zoonotic diseases, meaning they can be transmitted between animals and humans, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Ticks are effective transmitters of disease because most ticks take blood from a large variety of small and large mammals, reptiles and birds.
Fagundez said there are four diseases that can be found in some of Fort Leonard Wood’s tick population, including Alpha-gal syndrome, Lyme disease, tularemia — also known as rabbit fever — and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
According to the Missouri Department of Health, ticks in the United States are responsible for more human disease than any other insect, and as of June 1 of this year, there have been 93 cases of ehrlichiosis, 17 Rocky Mountain spotted fever, 15 tularemia and seven Lyme disease infections documented in Missouri.
The most basic precautions, according to Fagundez, include avoiding contact with wild animals, staying out of tall grass and using DEET (chemical name, N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) repellent.
According to the U.S. Environmetal Protection Agency, DEET works by “making it hard for biting bugs to smell us.”
If a tick has attached itself to skin, Fagundez said the best way to remove them is “carefully.”
“Use fine-tipped tweezers by pulling for the head of the tick, the part of the tick closest to your skin. Never squeeze their bodies. You don’t want to pull the body off and leave the head and mouthparts embedded in your skin. After you remove the tick, wash the skin affected and your hands with water and soap. Then, you can put the tick in a bag and take it to the Department of Public Health tick program and they will send it off for testing,” Fagundez said.
Anyone with access to post can take their ticks to the Public Health office in Bldg. 2222, Fagundez added. For more information on their tick program, call 573.596.0518.
The CDC website states that many tick-borne diseases can have similar signs and symptoms — the most common include fever and chills, aches and pains and a rash.
“Keep an eye on the bite. If you see rash, blisters, abnormal red skin or if you feel sick, seek medical attention,” Fagundez said.
Units can request tick drags prior to occupying specific training areas, Pridgen said.
“If we recommend that the training area be sprayed, this decreases the Soldiers exposure to ticks and risk of contracting a tickborne illness,” Pridgen said, adding units can request tick drags by sending an email to usarmy.leonardwood.medcom-glwach.list.eh-pest-management@health.mil, “containing the training areas they will be occupying and dates of occupation.”
“Tick drag requests need to be submitted at least three weeks prior to the occupation date,” Pridgen added.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has a tick awareness toolkit with more information on preventing tick bites, tick-borne diseases and repellent.
| Date Taken: | 06.11.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 06.12.2024 15:59 |
| Story ID: | 473796 |
| Location: | FORT LEONARD WOOD, MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 48 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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