Today, many Australians are gripping at a 5-year-old Sydney boy!
A few days ago, he and his children of the same age, every day full of vitality, love to run around in his home yard, is the happy fruit of his mother's eyes. Now, however, he lay painfully in the hospital bed, filled with cold scientific instruments, and was about to receive long and tormented treatment!
What terrible thing has happened to this lovely little boy?
Things have to start on Monday. The little boy Liam Maher and his mother, Susie Maher, live on the north shore of Sydney. Two days ago, Liam left school early. At this age, he couldn't wait for a moment. As soon as he got home, he started to go crazy in the yard, but it took about 15 minutes. Mother Susie Maher suddenly heard Liam crying in the yard, she ran out to see the situation.
Only to see Liam sitting on the ground, hands holding his feet, tears streaming, Susie looked at this posture and thought the child was bitten by a snake, but she walked into it, but found it was only a very small wound.
She asked Liam what it was, and Liam didn't know. She said she felt a sudden pain in her foot and looked down at nothing.
Because the wound was not big, Susie didn't take it too seriously, thinking it was a bug in the yard. However, that night, Liam's situation was something wrong, he was all over the body full of small red spots, like a needle like the pain!
Susie thought the child had measles and was going to take him to the emergency room after dinner. But the horror was not over. When Liam finished his dinner, his body began to worsen rapidly. He began to vomit and went to the toilet several times in a row. He had a bad diarrhea! At the same time also launched a high fever, the whole person like scattered, has lost consciousness!
This really caught Susie by surprise, she immediately dialed the emergency call, the child to the hospital! To the hospital, after overnight rescue by the doctor, finally saved the life of Liam, and at the same time confirmed the cause of Liam-allergic!
After listening to the doctor, Susie was stunned because, as a mother, she knew that Liam had not had any allergies at all, and that she had numerous medical examinations with her children in the five years since she was born.
Never heard of a child having a "sugar alpha-gal", not to mention allergies to meat, how could he suddenly be allergic this time?
It turns out that the main culprit for all this is the ticks that are everywhere in Australia, "Ixodes holocyclus ticks-paralyzed ticks," and the "Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria-Lyme Spirulina" they carry are the culprits of all this!
Doctors say the worm's saliva contains a sugar called "alpha-gal" that is not found in the body. We also have alpha-gal. in the red meat (cattle, sheep, pigs, etc.) we eat every day.
There is no problem with eating alpha-gal through food, but alpha-gal in the saliva of paralyzed ticks can cause resistance in the immune system.
The immune system uses the bug's alpha-gal as a "foreign impurity" to produce persistent antibodies. As a result, the next time the victim eats red meat, the anti-reaction continues to produce a severe allergic reaction.
Australian microbiologist Jason Tetro says the allergy will be lifelong because it changes your immune system. At present, doctors have not been able to develop a treatment that can effectively eliminate this allergic reaction.
In other words, after a bite by it, this life will not want to eat beef, pork and other red meat!
The head of the Lyme disease Association of Australia-Australian Lyme Disease Association said that Australian ticks spread 30 kilometers inland from the eastern coast of the new state, overlapping with the main population distribution, so humans can often meet them.
However, this year's situation is different, this time they are even more aggressive, a surge in numbers, a massive invasion of the Australian backyard!
Sydney is the hardest hit!
Australian media have been rolling their stories these days, issuing an urgent reminder: the horrendous Australian tick season is coming! < 7 news: watch your children! The horrendous Australian tick season is coming!
The reason why the Australian media are so nervous, in addition to their number, is that they have a wide range of activities and are very difficult to detect! Like many insects, ticks prefer warm, moist, bushy areas, usually laying eggs in leaves or rotten leaves. When humans traverse bushes and bushes, ticks may stick to clothing or fall into clothing from drooping branches.
The terrible thing is, these ticks are very small, usually only 1-2 cm, such small insects if not to pay attention to, it is difficult to find that they have been hidden in your body for a long time!
Now that the temperature is warming, the backyard of the family has become the back garden of ticks! Ticks now invading Australian homes will be bolder, more restless and more vulnerable to harm. And the back garden of our family, often is our children's playground, do not know, ticks will launch attacks on them, think about it shudder! Australian media so special reminder: ticks season, please be sure to watch their own children!
In fact, Liam is not the only victim, Melbourne 63-year-old patient Louise Danzig still panicked when he recalled the incident: "I remember eating a hamburger a few hours later. I went to bed and woke up to find my hands swollen, as painful and itchy as being baked by fire. I hastened to get up and go downstairs to the hospital. I could feel the swelling of my lips and tongue. I hastened to make a first-aid call. Fortunately, I played early, and later my throat was swollen and suffocated. "
After going to the hospital, the doctor confirmed that she was allergic to red meat, and she had been bitten by ticks not long ago. "I will never eat hamburgers again. "it was horrible," recalls Perth's 71-year-old patient, Georgette Simmons, who got sick after eating a steak. "I woke up about 4:30 and felt like I was on fire. There was a big urticaria and itching all over. I've never seen anything like this before, and I never found out I was allergic to meat. So a few weeks later, I had another steak. As a result, the whole body was swollen again, and the throat was burning like a fire. "
This is terrible! So in the face of such a serious tick invasion, how to identify them, and will deal with them correctly, become the top priority!
How to identify Australian ticks?
The main features of Australian ticks include: the body is oval, the back of the abdomen is flat when the blood is not fed, the back is slightly raised, the adult body is 2 × 10 mm long, and when the body is full, it is as big as red bean or castor, and it can be up to 30 mm in length. Epidermis leathery, abaxially or with chitin shield. The insect body is divided into two parts: the jaw body and the body.
Where do ticks like to hide?
In Australia, ticks are found everywhere, in warm, moist, thicket areas in the backyard of many people. Under plant roots, leaves, stones, etc. In the drooping branches. Under the bark.
What symptoms will appear after being bitten by tick?
Irritant symptoms such as tingling or burning in bites; including fever, fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain and lymph node distension; small lumpy bulges; and, most notably, target-shaped red rash (Bulls Eye Rash).
What do you do if you get bitten by ticks?
Once the ticks are found, do not pinch, drag, stimulate it with fire or anything else, because doing so may break the ticks' mouthpiece in the skin; Second, it stimulates ticks to secrete more saliva that carries pathogens, increasing the likelihood of infection. All you have to do is find a pair of pointed tweezers, hold it as close as possible to the skin, and pull it out. Don't shake it left or right to prevent it from breaking. After pulling out the ticks, wash the wounds and hands with alcohol or soapy water.
If possible, don't throw it away. Put it in a sealed plastic bag or bottle and freeze it in the refrigerator. As soon as tick-borne symptoms develop in the future, it will help doctors to find out the cause of the disease more easily.
Therefore, Chinese friends should pay attention to the fact that if you are going out recently, it is best to wear long sleeves and trousers in bright colors (easy to find ticks attached to your body), but stick the tail of your trousers into your socks and wear a wide cap. Then spray the insect repellent containing DEET or Picaridin.
Take off all your clothes from outside and check your body for ticks, especially the back of the ear, the back of the brain, the groin, the armpit, and the back of the knee.
There are more and more cases of dogs infected with ticks every year if pets are taken out of the house.
