March 16, 2001 ATLANTA (AP) - Lyme disease soared in the late 1990s as Americans built more and more homes in the woods, bringing people into contact with disease-carrying ticks, the government reported.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it recorded nearly 17,000 cases of Lyme in 1998 and more than 16,000 in 1999, with the vast majority concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest.
The United States averaged about 11,000 cases a year in the first eight years of the decade.
The CDC said increased awareness of Lyme disease may account for some of the rise of reported cases.
But the agency attributed the jump mainly to cities sprawling into rural areas, new homes being built in heavily wooded developments and a booming population of deer, which carry ticks that spread the disease.
"People are simply having more contact with the ticks that can transmit Lyme disease, even in their own back yards," CDC epidemiologist Stacie Marshall said. "People really enjoy having that sort of forested, outdoorsy ecology right around. There's just more chance to have more contact."
Lyme disease is also found in Europe and temperate parts of Asia, where it's spread by the same class of ticks and generally shows up as a skin problem, Marshall said.
Lyme disease causes fatigue, fever and joint pain that can persist for weeks, and some patients develop severe arthritis. Lyme also can badly damage the heart and nervous system if it goes untreated by antibiotics.
Signs include rash and flulike symptoms. Daily tick checks, vaccinations and insect repellent are recommended as preventive measures.
More than 90 percent of the 1999 cases came from nine states - Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin - where deer ticks are most common.
Connecticut accounted for one in every six reported cases in 1999. It was in Lyme, Connecticut, that the disease was discovered in 1975.
Lyme was first tracked nationally only 10 years ago.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
