Disease-laden bomb ticking away in Newport?

Alex Coolman

Gail Metzger thought her Welsh Corgi could use some fresh air last

month, so she took her on a walk along Back Bay Drive in Newport Beach.

The dog came back happy, but it picked up more than good vibes on its

walk around the Bay: it also acquired a tick, which passed along a

disease called erlichiosis.

Holly, the Corgi, has never been the same. Though her veterinarian has

the dog on antibiotics, Metzger said Holly has been devastated by the

disease, which degrades the immune system and can be fatal if not

treated.

“Even if she totally recovers,” Metzger said. “She will have chronic

symptoms for the rest of her life.”

Metzger, a Vista Del Oro resident, says the tick situation has her

worried. What happened to her dog, she says, can easily happen to other

animals.

Or, for that matter, to people.

“I just really want to see some warning signs up there,” she said.

But though local vector control officials say they understand the

concern about ticks, they say residents also need to realize that there

are risks involved with entering wildlife areas.

“These are not Disneyland rides,” said James Webb, technical director

for Orange County Vector Control. “Outdoors users really need to be

cognizant of what they’re exposing themselves to.”

Webb said vector control tests area ticks periodically for

erlichiosis, Lyme disease and babesiosis, which is an infection not

unlike malaria.

In a study conducted in 1995 and 1996, he said, slightly more than 1%

of ticks tested positive for erlichiosis.

Lyme disease has also been found in some ticks tested in Orange

County, according to Alan Barbour of the UCI Medical Center. But the

incidence of this problem is also fairly rare.

Barbour said that in recent years, there have been fewer than 10

annual reports of the disease countywide.

In the eastern U.S., tick-borne diseases tend to be a much larger

problem, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention. In the late ‘90s, he said, the center found more

than 12,000 cases of Lyme disease annually, most of which occurred in the

Northeast portion of the country.

But Metzger says she doesn’t think it makes sense to wait for the tick

problem to worsen here before taking steps to deal with it.

“I only took [Holly] down there once,” she said.

And once was all it took.