Thread by @WIRED

Before the Asian longhorned tick showed up in the US in 2017, its home range was understood to be eastern China and Russia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and a few Pacific islands. It’s now been found in 11 US states—here’s why that’s terrifying 1/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

The tick is known to harbor an array of bacterial and viral diseases that infect humans, including a potentially deadly hemorrhagic fever. But it’s even more feared for the way it attacks livestock 2/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

After a man was bitten by one last summer, investigators inspected his house. He didn't travel much, hadn't been outside his county in a month, and wasn't all that outdoorsy. It didn't matter—they found ticks and larvae all around his house 3/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

To recap: The tick arrived without explanation, moved without notice, flourished in areas where it should not have, and now poses a possible human health threat.

“I’m alarmed,” says Bobbi Pritt, a pathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota 4/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

Behind those Qs looms a problem: The US hasn’t paid as much attention to ticks as it has to other disease-carrying insects. Last year, the CDC reported that cases of disease carried by insects tripled from 2004-2016; three-fourths were caused by ticks 5/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

The CDC and other public agencies have been more focused on mosquitoes. They spend an estimated $200 million a year on catching, analyzing, and killing the bugs. Right now, tick surveillance is mostly driven by the interests of academic scientists 6/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU

The good news: The CDC is beginning to fund state health departments for tick surveillance efforts and is planning to produce and publish a map of ticks and the pathogens they carry yearly.

That’s a start, but there’s a lot of catching up to do 7/ wired.trib.al/AK77TIU