LYME DISEASE TICKS OFF NEW YORK
 HEALTH OFFICIALS BEGIN SEARCHING
 BRONX PARKS AFTER RECENT
 OUTBREAK

 Source: ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

 NEW YORK - ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS from Dialog via Individual
 Inc. : Concerned by a jump in cases of Lyme disease after last year's
 discovery of infected deer ticks in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New
 York City will begin scouring more parks for deer ticks, health officials said
 recently.

 Fred Winters, a spokesman for the city's Health Department, said that the
 number of cases of Lyme disease among city residents has more than doubled
 in recent years. And, he said, 75 of the 400 city residents who were said to
 have the disease last year had not traveled to parks or other tick-infested areas
 outside New York City.

 ``The obvious concern,'' Winters said, ``is that they are picking it up in the
 city.''

 Two Fordham University scientists discovered ticks with Lyme disease last
 year in Van Cortlandt Park, which borders Westchester County.

 ``It is the only park we've looked at,'' said Thomas J. Daniels, an assistant
 professor of biology at the Fordham University Louis Calder Ecology Center
 in Armonk, in an interview yesterday. ``It is possible that ticks have been
 picked up in other parks as well.''

 In 1995, Daniels and his partners also found that a white-footed mouse caught
 in the park had a bacterial infection that is similar to Lyme disease, but more
 severe. That disease, human granulocytic ehrlichiosis, or HGE, is sometimes
 fatal and is also transmitted by deer ticks.

 City health officials plan to search for the disease-infected arachnids in Bronx
 parks by dragging light-colored pieces of flannel cloth through the brush. The
 ticks jump on the cloth, taking it for a potential host.

 The city is also asking veterinarians to test pets voluntarily for Lyme disease,
 Winters said. Doctors now report all Lyme disease cases to city officials, he
 said, but the city has asked them to question their patients extensively to
 determine where they may have picked up the infection.

 For years, Lyme disease has been found in rural and suburban wooded areas
 in the Northeast with high populations of deer. Gradually, the disease has
 moved closer to the city, spreading west on Long Island and south in
 Westchester County.

 Daniels said the disease has spread as the ticks have become more numerous
 and they have moved by feeding on most species of mammals and birds.

 Lyme disease is caused by a spirochete, a type of bacterium, called Borrelia
 burgdorferi. When an infected tick bites, it can inject the organism into the
 victim's {*filter*}. In most cases, within 24 to 48 hours of such a bite, an
 individual develops a rash with a bull's-eye pattern around the bite. The
 infected person may also suffer fever, headache and a stiff neck. Eventually the
 rash disappears, but the person's joints may become painful and stiff.

 Ticks on the body should be removed immediately with tweezers by grasping
 the tick at the point it is attached to the skin and pulling straight up.

 LIB