Essay Sample on An Article That Supports My Colleague's Underrecognized Public Health Issues

I agree with my colleague that tick-borne infections are among the world's underrecognized public health issues. Several empirical studies have highlighted that tickborne diseases are underrecognized (Hudman, 2018). It has been noted that one of the under-recognized tick-borne illnesses is babesiosis. The causative agent of this disease is protozoa of the genus Babesia, whose transmission takes place through tick bites. The highest rates of infection take place in the warmer months and lead to the bursting of the erythrocytes (Daniels, Mastoris, Knouse, & Smith, 2014).

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Apart from what was discussed by my colleague regarding the need to increase public awareness of tick-borne illnesses, it is worth noting that the prevalence of the diseases is on the rise. According to the National Institutes of Health (2018), the incidence of tick-borne illnesses in the USA has increased significantly in the past decade. Therefore, it is crucial that public health professionals and scientific researchers develop an excellent understanding of the development of these diseases, design better diagnoses, and come up with preventive measures such as vaccines.

The public health problem of tick-borne illnesses is further exacerbated by underreporting in the United States (Mead, Hinckley, Hook, & Beard, 2015; Schiffman et al., 2018). The most underreported tickborne diseases include babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and Lyme disease. Underreported cases of tick-borne illnesses were reported in Minnesota to be 79% with 352 cases not reported out of illness events (Schiffman et al., 2018). It has also been established that annually, Lyme disease is ten times underreported as only 30,000 cases of the disease out of a possible 300,000 are reported. Underreporting may be attributed to inadequate tickborne illness surveillance and limitations of diagnostic criteria and assessment which are not capable of recognizing tickborne pathogens as they unfold.

References

Daniels, M., Mastoris, K., Knouse, M., & Smith, S. (2014, April 10-12). Babesiosis: An under-recognized tick-borne illness. Poster presented at: The American College of Physicians (ACP) Internal Medicine 2014, Orlando, FL.

Hudman, D. A. (2018). Exposure to ticks and their pathogens in northeast Missouri. Missouri Medicine, 115(4), 374-379.

Mead, P., Hinckley, A., Hook, S., & Beard, C. B. (2015). Ticknet-A collaborative public health approach to tickborne disease surveillance and research. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 21(9), 1574-1577. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2109.150301

National Institutes of Health. (2018). Tickborne diseases are likely to increase, say NIH officials. Retrieved from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/tickborne-diseases-are-likely-increase-say-nih-officials

Schiffman, E. K., McLaughlin, C., Ray, J. a. E., Kemperman, M. M., Hinckley, A. F., Friedlander, H. G., & Neitzel, D. F. (2018). Underreporting of lyme and other tick-borne diseases in residents of a high-incidence county, Minnesota, 2009. Zoonoses and Public Health, 65(2), 230-237. https://doi.org/10.1111/zph.12291