eTick Expands To More Provinces

eTick, a mobile app to help you log ticks or see where ticks might be in your area has received more funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada to expand the project to the rest of Canada by spring 2021. The first phase will allow the extension of the service to Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland & Labrador in April 2020.

More than 1300 ticks were identified through eTick in 2019 (you can see where even if you don’t have the app installed by using their  interactive map). As of May 1st, eTick had already identified 300 ticks found in 2020 and by May 15th, 2020, this number almost quadrupled.

The most commonly identified species in each province was Ixodes scapularis, the blacklegged tick responsible for the transmission of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. Another trend is a westward increase in the proportion of Dermacentor spp. (i.e. American dog tick or moose tick) submissions and an eastward increase in the proportion of Ixodes cookei (groundhog tick) submissions. More than half of the specimens were found on animals, especially dogs. For human hosts, ticks were most often reported from young children (i.e. 0-10 years old) and adults aged 31 to 70 years old.

Download the eTick app now on both the App Store and Google Play and follow the recommendations of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadians to prevent tick bites.