Home » Health » Inrae’s anti-tick application gets a facelift

Inrae’s anti-tick application gets a facelift

It is one of the hauntings of walkers in the forest: ticks, and through them, Lyme disease.

To try to better understand these small mites and the pathologies associated with them, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae) launched in 2017 a research program involving individuals, called CiTIQUE. They can report tick bites, especially through an application that has just had a facelift.

Since Monday, “Signaling Tick” has become “more ergonomic and more precise, to map the risk of tick bite in France”, explains Inrae, who adds that “one of the objectives of CiTIQUE is to collect data on the geographic distribution of tick bites and the pathogens they transport in France, depending on the environment, meteorology and seasons “.

Over 23,500 bites recorded

Tick ​​Reporting “is a free application that lets you indicate the existence and ecological conditions of tick bites, whether they are detected on a human or an animal, via a smartphone or a computer.

“The first version has already enabled the inventory of more than 23,500 bites all over France and the dispatch of more than 20,000 ticks to the laboratory of the INRAE ​​Grand Est-Nancy center where they are archived in the first and only French participatory tiquotheque “, further exposes Inrae.

The data already collected made it possible to confirm the most at risk periods: spring and autumn. In addition, we know thata third of the bites takes place in private gardens or public parks.

Finally, the researchers noticed that increase in bite reports in dogs and cats begins 3-4 weeks before increase in reports in humans. “These animals could therefore constitute good sentinels to assess the risk of a tick bite in humans,” concludes Inrae.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.