rotate the hypostome to facilitate removal. Chemical methods to make the tick self-detach, or trying to pull the tick out with one’s fingers, are not efficient methods. Diagnosis In general, specific laboratory tests are not available for rapid diagnosis of tick-borne diseases. Due to their seriousness, antibiotic treatment is often justified based on clinical presentation alone. Assessing risk For a person or pet to acquire a tick-borne disease requires that the individual gets bitten by a tick and that the tick feeds for a sufficient period of time. The feeding time required to transmit pathogens differs for different ticks and different pathogens. Transmission of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease is well understood to require a substantial feeding period. In general, soft ticks (Argasidae) transmit pathogens within minutes of attachment because they feed more frequently, whereas hard ticks (Ixodidae) take hours or days, but the latter are more common and harder to remove. For an individual to acquire infection, the feeding tick must also be infected. Not all ticks are infected. In most places in the US, 30-50% of deer ticks will be infected with Borrelia burgdorferi (the agent of Lyme disease). Other pathogens are much more rare. Ticks can be tested for infection using a highly specific and sensitive qPCR procedure. Several commercial labs provide this service to individuals for a fee. The Laboratory of Medical Zoology (LMZ), a nonprofit lab at the University of Massachusetts, provides a comprehensive TickReport for a variety of human pathogens and makes the data available to the public. Those wishing to know the incidence of tick-borne diseases in their town or state can search the LMZ surveillance database. Examples Major tick-borne diseases include: Bacterial Lyme disease or borreliosis Organism: Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (bacterium) Vector: at least 15 species of ticks in the genus Ixodes, including deer tick (Ixodes scapularis (=I. dammini), I. pacificus, I. ricinus (Europe), I. persulcatus (Asia)) Endemic to: The Americas and Eurasia Symptoms: Fever, arthritis, neuroborreliosis, erythema migrans, cranial nerve palsy, carditis, fatigue, and influenza-like illness Treatment: Antibiotics - amoxicillin in pregnant adults and children), (doxycycline in other adults Relapsing fever (tick-borne relapsing fever, different from Lyme disease due to different Borrelia species and ticks) Organisms: Borrelia species such as B. hermsii, B. parkeri, B. duttoni, B. miyamotoi Vector: Ornithodoros species Regions : Primarily in Africa, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Asia in and certain areas of Canada and the western