ALART “Wait Is Over”: SFTS finally reaches Kanagawa Prefecture

 

For Kanagawa Prefecture, there has been a continuing menace approaching from the West. Then, early this month, the wait was finally over. On July 11th, Kanagawa Prefecture announced a lady of her 60s in Matsuda Town, where Yadoriki Water Source Forest locates, was bitten by a tick in her neighbourhood and contracted Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, aka SFTS. She was hospitalized, but now is discharged and recovering.

SFTS is a disease caused by SFTS virus carried by ticks. When we are affected, we have fever, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, severe fatigue, thrombocytopenia, leukopenia, and/or lymphadenopathy. If you have these symptoms after bitten by a tick, please rush to a nearby hospital and ask help. It’s a deadly disease. Before, we had effective antibiotics, but no more. The virus has evolved into superbug, and we do not have a medicine to kill the virus inside the body. We must have invasive symptomatic treatments to maintain life and to wait our strength to quell the virus from the body. Already this year, one vet in Mie Prefecture 三重県 died after contracting the disease when he treated a cat patient.

Researchers stroke such bushes
with velvety cloth to collect ticks.

SFTS is carried by a tick. These bugs bite animals to suck blood. They have sharp scissors-like mouth that first cut our skin. Then, their long “tooth” which is a syringe needle with sawtooth-like surface is inserted into our body. The needle with tooth acts like a stopper to prevent the bug from being removed easily from the prey. When they insert their needle, they inject several kinds of body fluid of concrete-like materials to make the concatenation durable for a week. They bite into the skin firmly and drink blood until they are completely satiated. They can stay at the point for a week to drink 1L of blood. Their body fluids carry many kinds of viruses. SFTS is one of such bugs.

The place looks innocuous …

So, it’s important not to be bitten by ticks. Ticks with SFTS live in bushes. They are not necessarily in shrubs of remote countryside, but also on lawns for city parks. The method is applicable for the greenery everywhere.

1. Wear garments covering your body. Short pans and tank tops for Grand Canyon or Yosemite are HUGE NO-NO.

2. Apply plenty of insect repellent before going to a greenery whether it’s in National Park or garden next to a skyscraper in downtown. The blind spot is feet. Do not forget to spray insect repellent enough over your foot even wearing heavy-duty trekking shoes.

3. Do not put your luggage unguarded on the ground. Reason? Obvious. Do not let ticks crawl near your body! Spray mint-water over the place you intend to leave your bag. Ticks do not like the smell. Then spread plastic sheet over the sprayed ground, spray mint again over the sheet, and finally you leave your bag, and/or sit on the ground for lunch.

4. If you’re bitten, NEVER try to pry out the bug from your body. It shall destroy the body of the tick, and more virus-infected fluids will come out. The virus soup immediately seeps in the prey’s body through already needle inserted would. No good things occur. Please rush to the hospital with your tick, and leave the pro to remove the bug. 

5. NEVER bring ticks home. Do not bring your jacket inside car and home. Before leaving the site, please check if your garments carry ticks. If there are, put it in a plastic bag, and disinfect it in boiling water. Ticks do not die with simple washing. Also, take shower and/ or bath immediately after you come home from tick-loving bushes. Check your entire body if you’re unaffected.

The tick-SFTS problem has been rife in Western Japan from around 2011. We in Kanagawa Prefecture have been smugly relaxed. We could lie down freely on lawns and have lunch on a stump along our hiking roads. Those were the days. When Kanagawa is infected, Tokyo et al will follow. If you plan to stroll the greenery in Megalopolis Tokyo area, please be careful. If you have any questions, please make a contact with Japan Institute for Health Security. Here is their PR pamphlet for treating ticks problem. Sorry it’s in Japanese, but your AI will solve the language problem, I guess. Good luck.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/