Many healthcare providers have limited knowledge of tick bite-related food allergy, CDC says
A CDC report released Thursday said many healthcare providers have limited knowledge of alpha-gal syndrome, a tick bite-associated meat allergy. Photo by Judy Gallagher/Wikimedia Commons
A new CDC report Thursday shows that healthcare providers have limited knowledge of alpha-gal syndrome, a food allergy associated with a tick bite.
Ticks transmit the alpha gal sugar present in all mammals except humans. It can cause allergic reactions hours after eating meat and sometimes milk products.
Symptoms, which could be life-threatening, are recurrent vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain hours after eating meat.
There were more than 90,000 documented cases in the United States between 2017 and 2022.
“Evidence suggests that the reaction is primarily associated with the bite of the lone star tick (Ambylomma americanum) in the United States,” CDC said in a statement. “Cases are most prevalent in the southern, midwestern, and mid-Atlantic United States, overlapping the range of the lone star tick. No treatment or cure is currently available.”
Since diagnosis of AGS requires testing and a clinical exam and many who get sick don’t get tested, it’s estimated that as many as 450,000 people could have been affected by AGS since 2010.
“The number of suspected AGS cases in the United States has increased substantially since 2010, and states with established populations of lone star ticks are most affected, although suspected AGS cases were also identified in areas outside of this tick’s range,” the CDC statement said.
About 42% of healthcare providers have never heard if it and another 35% don’t know how to diagnose it, according to a survey by Porter Novelli Public Services.
According to the CDC, “The highest prevalences of suspected cases were found throughout a nearly contiguous region of the southern, midwestern, and mid-Atlantic United States, particularly parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.”
The highest numbers of suspected cases were in Charlotte County, Va., with 12,273, and Muhlenberg County, Ky., with 6,107.
CDC advises clinicians to talk to patients about protecting themselves from tick bites.