Our District conducts tick and tick- borne disease surveillance operations throughout the County. Each year staff biologists survey areas where potential public exposure to vector ticks may occur such as urban recreational parks, hiking trails, and East Bay Regional Parks.
A four-year research collaboration with Professor R. Lane of University of California was completed and published in the Journal of Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases in 2014*. In addition to Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi), the study identified three other bacteria (Borrelia bissettii, Borrelia miyamotoi, and Anaplasma phygocytophilum) that can cause tick-borne human illness in Alameda County.
*Remarkable diversity of tick or mammalian-associated Borreliae in the metropolitan San Francisco Bay Area, California Natalia Fedorova et al/Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases 5(2014) 951-961
Distribution Map of Western black-legged ticks in Alameda County
