Russian scientists have discovered a new dangerous species of ticks that can cause plague

Scientists at the Tyumen Medical University have discovered and described three new types of ticks that can be carriers of diseases such as plague and fever. The results of their research are published in the Iranian scientific journal Persian Journal of Acarology.

According to the conclusions of experts, the detected insects belong to two species. One is known as a carrier of bartonellosis, and the second – tick-borne encephalitis, borreliosis, West Nile fever, plague, and other dangerous diseases.

As one of the authors of the study, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Tyumen Medical University Maria Orlova, notes, one of the ticks was obtained in 2020 from alcoholized collections of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University, when the existing collections of bats were examined. The rest were collected during their lifetime from bats caught in Buryatia and Tuva, which were then released into the wild.

Morphologically, the ticks are not similar to those described earlier, and scientists suspect that they live, presumably, in China. In the future, scientists are going to cooperate with Chinese experts to study in more depth the habitats of identified ticks.

April 13 Chief Sanitary Doctor of Russia Anna Popova informedthat “ticks have woken up almost everywhere in the country.” She urged Russians to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis, a deadly disease.

Alexander Kislov