When you think of Lyme Disease, you think of a tick bite and you may think you are safe from Lyme Disease due to the fact that the tick which carries the disease is not found here in Saskatchewan. However, Jim Wilson, President of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation, explains that that is not always the case. 

"You don't need ticks to live there, and that's the unfortunate part is that the physicians aren't getting that education."

"It's our migratory birds that are bringing these ticks in and transplanting them randomly throughout the province. If you're getting robins and wrens and finches, which you do in Saskatchewan, then you are getting ticks being brought in from the Lyme endemic areas of the United States." 

"And there's also the East-West migratory flyways so birds from the highly endemic Southern Manitoba region are bringing in ticks. So a bird could be in Winnipeg one day and in your backyard in Estevan the next day carrying these ticks."

He adds that once a bird is infected, it can pass the disease on to other creatures.

"And not only do these migratory birds carry these ticks, they also carry the disease in their blood infecting any new ticks jumping aboard. And that's well established in the researcher by John Scott who has published extensively on the bird migration involvement in random transplant of ticks."

He warns that this knowledge is not being put to good use in helping to diagnose potential sufferers of this disease. 

"Canadian policy ties the diagnosis to the patient having to have been to a known endemic area which is absurd when you're talking about a disease that is so well known to be randomly transplanted throughout the regions by the migratory birds and it's not only published by John Scott, but also the Public Agency of Canada. 

He adds that the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation works with governments to try and improve policy in Canada.

A BBQ fundraiser will be held for Sheri Vincent on June 24 at Peavey Mart form 11-2 to raise funds as she battles this disease. 

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