News Center Maine reports on tick testing offered by UMaine Extension
News Center Maine reported the University of Maine Cooperative Extension is accepting tick submissions from people across the state to identify what type of tick they are and to see if they carry diseases. Since April 1, UMaine Extension has received about 1,500 ticks and tested around 900. They found about 45 percent of the ticks tested carry some sort of disease, and 40 percent of the affected ticks have Lyme disease, according to the report. Griffin Dill, an integrated pest management professional with UMaine Extension, said the data confirms what researchers already suspected. “The infection rate has generally been estimated somewhere (around) 40 percent in the entire state,” he said. Once more data is collected, researchers will make a map of “hot spots” that shows where there are more affected ticks in the state, the report states.