Transmission+-+Lyme+Disease

Lyme Disease is spread through tick bites from a number of ticks, most commonly the backlogged Tick. The ticks are not born with the disease, they get it from the rodents and other animals they feed on. If a human is a tick's first meal, the tick will not transmit the disease. However, if a tick has bitten an infected animal and then bites a human, the human has a high chance of contracting the disease.



The way in which Lyme disease is spread presents an interesting situation for fighting the disease. Lyme disease is only proven to be passed from tick to person, so the chance of an epidemic is low-as it is not very contagious. This makes mitigating an outbreak relatively easy. However, it also makes completely erraticating the disease nearly impossible as it would require killing every single infected tick in the world. Deer ticks are extremely small and often tick bites can go unnoticed for a long time, making tracking the spread of Lyme disease very difficult.