Usually I find everything I need in the Fodors search engine. This one I cannot...so it may be a stupid question, but better safe than sorry. Here in East USA we check for ticks after nature outings(and find them). Part of our trip will be in Chanti and a province of Molisee with relatives who own a farm. Is there a concern there??

Hello DLAfamily. You mean the region of Molise I am sure. Interesting..I have friends in the small village of Cantalupo and also in the city of Campobasso. A beautiful area!

I have never even thought about ticks, lyme diease etc and I have never heard about anyone there having a problem. But that doesn't mean there isn't a problem of course. There are travel health clinics that perhaps could answer your question. Perhaps you could go to Google and see if there is one in your area.

I will say I know people from the East Coast that go back to the Region of Molise annually and they have never had a health problem. Best wishes.

I had a vaccination once against tick-borne encephalitis but that was because I was living in a rural (ie forests and remote) area in Russia where ticks are quite prevalent during certain times of the year. Better check with a travel health clinic, I'm not sure Italy would be a country to be worried about.

Check with your relatives there.

Useless information for you perhaps, but where I live in Belgium, we have a particularly bad problem with ticks this year because of the warm winter. Our dogs had them even in February, which doesn't usually happen. Advice here is to wear long trousers and sleeves when out in woodlands. But check with your relatives there; this is for Belgium.

We do have the problem here in Southern Germany, so I suppose it exists in Italy, too. Check for ticks as you are used to, that's all you can do. There is no vaccination against Lyme disease anyway.

According to some relatively reliable resources, Lyme Disease (not under that name) was first discovered in Germany and is more common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Scandinavia than elsewhere in Europe. It would not appear to be the issue for Italy that it is for us in New England.

By the way, we have a lot of UK visitors and give them brochures about Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, urging them to give the brochure to their doctors at home if they develop flu-like symptoms. Most of the visitors have never heard of the disease.

Sheep ticks are an increasing plague in rural Ireland. I am tweezering several off my cats every day now and have had them on me. The internet tells me that they do not carry disease here - yet. But the itching...

This site has quite a lot of info on all sorts of nasties in Italy:
http://tinyurl.com/26c9b4
Ticks are a problem throughout Europe, and carry more than just Lyme disease. Ehrlichiosis is spreading north as the climate warms as well.
No matter where I am I take tick precautions and check myself (and my dogs if they are with me) for ticks after walking in the countryside.
Better to assume Lyme is endemic and take precautions than end up with it.

On the unpleasant subject of ticks, I just read in a French Belgian paper that central Turkey has had an outbreak of ticks that can cause a fatal disease with symptoms similar to the Ebola virus. The article claimed 27 people had died (over a period of several years, not just in 2007). Still...

Hi

Now this is freaky. A mate of mine emailed me this morning re a technique for removing a tick. I thought it bizarre in that we don't have them. If anyone is interested here's the transcript

"A School Nurse has written the info below -- good enough to share --
And it really works!!
I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to
remove a tick.
This is great, because it works in those places where it's sometimes
difficult to get To with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.
Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the
soap-soaked cotton ball And let it stay on the repulsive insect for a few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on it's own and be stuck
to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked every
time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less
traumatic for the patient and easier for me.
Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging
in any way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had
one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She used
this method and immediately called me back to say, "It worked!"
Please pass on; everyone needs this helpful hint....safe for pets
too!!!!!"

Never ever put something on a tick to get it out. Not soap, not alcohol, don'rt use a cigareete butt, nothing!!! It will eject it's stomach contents, plus any parasites it is carrying into your bloodstream, increasing dramaticaly your chances of getting Lyme or whatever. Only ever use tweezers or a Trix type loop.

http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/tick.asp

OK that's that urban myth put to rest...:-"

Have always removed them with finger and thumb (yes, I wash my hands afterwards) - the tick will still be alive after extraction so make sure you kill it. A lit match will do the trick.

It is my understanding there is a small amount of Lyme in Liguria, but even there it is not considered a great problem. In general, Lyme ticks prefer a wetter climate and you are more prone to pick up a Lyme tick that has gotten on you through a droplet of water (walking through wet brush, rather than dry brush).

The Lyme risk in the northeast US is heaviest in the spring months of April/May/June and the autumn months of October/November, partly due to the repreductive cycle of ticks and partly due to the fact that heat and dryness depress tick risk. No doubt the same is true for the already-slight tick risk in Italy, and I simply wouldn't think twice about it.

Just found this thred when I was looking for info on Ticks myself and thought I'd let you know.....

I'm going to Meran in Sud Tirol (northern Italy/southern Austria next week for four weeks and I was worried about ticks - not becase of Lyme disease but because of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) because I have a small baby.

I went to the paediatrician this morning who said that the risk is low but it is there.

Babies cannot be immunized for it until they are over a year old. She said to keep the baby (and ourselves) well covered and use a mosquito net for the baby and not sit on the grass or under a tree etc.

She did mention about the tick ejecting the contents of its stomach - yummy - but said that if you pour oil - like olive oil on the tick it will slide off easily without the ejection.