question: Why is it said that Lyme’s Disease takes 48 hours to transmit from tick to human, when otherwise kids are generally told that disease agents like viruses and bacteria can transmit instantly?
comment: Lyme Disease actually takes a minimum of 24 hours to transmit, not 48. I just wanted to clear that up because I so happen to do some research on the topic recently. I can't speak about other bacteria/viruses, but it seems like the instantaneous transmission you're talking about may be just an uninformed opinion that people don't care or know to correct. I doubt that Lyme Disease is an outlier in the fact that it takes time to transmit, I'd bet other bacteria and viruses do as well. I'm just not certain of any! I hope this helped.
passages: For a person or companion animal to acquire a tick-borne disease requires that that individual gets bitten by a tick and that that tick feeds for a sufficient period of time. The feeding time required to transmit pathogens differs for different ticks and different pathogens. Transmission of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease is well understood to require a substantial feeding period.
   Coinfections complicate Lyme symptoms, especially diagnosis and treatment. It is possible for a tick to carry and transmit one of the coinfections and not "Borrelia", making diagnosis difficult and often elusive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 100 ticks in rural New Jersey, and found 55% of the ticks were infected with at least one of the pathogens.
  
  Section::::Pathophysiology.
   Treatment of Lyme-like Disease. Early treatment with antibiotics is important to prevent more serious problems. Pregnant women bitten by a tick should see their doctor. Some data suggests that Lyme Disease can affect the foetus, but two large studies in the US and Europe showed no increased risk of adverse effects on the foetus.
  
  Section::::Vector competence.:Viral diseases.
  
  So far, no viruses have been isolated from "Ixodes holocyclus". This does not however exclude the possibility that such diseases may be found in the future.
  
  Section::::Vector competence.:Protozoal diseases.
   Tick bites often go unnoticed because of the small size of the tick in its nymphal stage, as well as tick secretions that prevent the host from feeling any itch or pain from the bite. However, transmission is quite rare, with only about 1% of recognized tick bites resulting in Lyme disease. 
   BULLET::::- Grasp the tick firmly and as close to their skin as possible.
  
  BULLET::::- Pull the tick's body away from the skin with a steady motion.
  
  BULLET::::- Clean the area with soap and water.
  
  BULLET::::- Removing infected ticks within 24 hours reduces the risk of being infected with the Lyme disease bacterium.
  
  BULLET::::- Wash and dry work clothes in a hot dryer to kill any ticks present.
  
  BULLET::::- Learn the symptoms of Lyme disease.
   BULLET::::- Bubonic plague - Principal vector: "Xenopsylla cheopis" At least 100 flea species can transmit plague. Re-emerging major threat several thousand human cases per year.High pathogenicity and rapid spread.
  
  BULLET::::- Sleeping sickness - Vector: Tsetse fly, not all species. Sleeping sickness threatens millions of people in 36 countries of sub-Saharan Africa (WHO)
  
  BULLET::::- Typhus - Vectors: mites, fleas and body lice 16 million cases a year, resulting in 600,000 deaths annually.
  
  BULLET::::- Wuchereria bancrofti - most common vectors: the mosquito species: "Culex", "Anopheles", "Mansonia", and "Aedes"; affects over 120 million people.
   The risk of infectious transmission increases with the duration of tick attachment. It requires between 36 and 48 hours of attachment for the bacteria that causes Lyme to travel from within the tick into its saliva. If a deer tick that is sufficiently likely to be carrying "Borrelia" is found attached to a person and removed, and if the tick has been attached for 36 hours or is engorged, a single dose of doxycycline administered within the 72 hours after removal may reduce the risk of Lyme disease. It is not generally recommended for all people bitten, as development of infection is rare: about 50 bitten people would have to be treated this way to prevent one case of erythema migrans (i.e. the typical rash found in about 70-80% of people infected).
   Transstadial transmission
  
  Transstadial transmission occurs when a pathogen remains with the vector from one life stage ("stadium") to the next. For example, the bacteria "Borrelia burgdorferi", the causative agent for Lyme disease, infects the tick vector as a larva, and the infection is maintained when it molts to a nymph and later develops as an adult. This type of transmission is seen in other parasites like viruses or "Rickettsia". In addition to ticks, mites are another common vector. Some sources consider transstadial transmission a type of horizontal transmission, whereas other sources consider it vertical or partial vertical transmission.
   BULLET::::- Wearing appropriate repellents (containing 20% to 30% DEET) to use on their skin and clothing for protection against tick bites
  
  Employers are also able to help prevent contracting Lyme disease in their workers by: 
  
  BULLET::::- Providing workers with insecticides (such as permethrin)to provide greater protection. Permethrin kills ticks and can be used on clothing (but not skin).
  
  BULLET::::- Avoiding working at sites with woods, bushes, tall grass, and leaf litter when feasible.
  
  BULLET::::- Providing personal protective equipment.
  
  If work in these higher-risk sites must occur, the following can reduce tick populations:
  
  BULLET::::- Remove leaf litter.
   Lyme disease is classified as a zoonosis, as it is transmitted to humans from a natural reservoir among small mammals and birds by ticks that feed on both sets of hosts. Hard-bodied ticks of the genus "Ixodes" are the main vectors of Lyme disease (also the vector for "Babesia"). Most infections are caused by ticks in the nymphal stage, because they are very small and thus may feed for long periods of time undetected. In New Jersey, USA, nymphal ticks are generally the size of a poppy seed and sometimes with a dark head and a translucent body. (The younger larval ticks are very rarely infected.) Although deer are the preferred hosts of adult deer ticks, and tick populations are much lower in the absence of deer, ticks generally do not acquire "Borrelia" from deer, instead they obtain them from infected small mammals such as the white-footed mouse, and occasionally birds. Areas where Lyme is common are expanding.
   Co-infections complicate Lyme symptoms, especially diagnosis and treatment. It is possible for a tick to carry and transmit one of the co-infections and not "Borrelia", making diagnosis difficult and often elusive. The Centers for Disease Control's emerging infectious diseases department did a study in rural New Jersey of 100 ticks, and found 55% of the ticks were infected with at least one of the pathogens.
  
  Although they are the preferred mammalian hosts, deer cannot transmit "Borrelia" spirochetes to ticks. Ticks acquire Lyme disease microbes by feeding on infected mice and other small rodents.
   Anaplasmosis and babesiosis are also common tick-borne pathogens carried by the Ixodes tick that infect humans similarly to Borrelia burgdorferi. Consequently, it is possible for an Ixodes tick to coinfect a host with either two or all other diseases. When a host is coinfected, the combined effects of the diseases act synergistically, often proving to cause worse symptoms than a single infection alone Coinfected humans tend to display a more severe manifestation of Lyme disease. In addition, they tend to acquire a wider range of secondary symptoms, such as influenza-like symptoms. More studies and research must be done to determine the synergistic effect of co-infection and its effect on the human body.
   In western and sub-Saharan Africa, tick-borne relapsing fever has been recognized for over a century, since it was first isolated by the British physicians Joseph Everett Dutton and John Lancelot Todd in 1905. "Borrelia" in the manifestation of Lyme disease in this region is presently unknown, but evidence indicates the disease may occur in humans in sub-Saharan Africa. The abundance of hosts and tick vectors would favor the establishment of the infection in Africa. In East Africa two cases of Lyme disease have been reported in Kenya.
   After the identification of "B. burgdorferi" as the causative agent of Lyme disease, antibiotics were selected for testing, guided by "in vitro" antibiotic sensitivities, including tetracycline antibiotics, amoxicillin, cefuroxime axetil, intravenous and intramuscular penicillin and intravenous ceftriaxone. The mechanism of tick transmission was also the subject of much discussion. "B. burgdorferi" spirochetes were identified in tick saliva in 1987, confirming the hypothesis that transmission occurred via tick salivary glands.
  
  Section::::Society and culture.
   Occupational exposure to Lyme disease is exposure to Lyme disease on the job. It is a major health issue among outdoor workers. Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne disease in the United States. In 2010, more than 22,500 confirmed and 7,500 probable cases of Lyme disease were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Lyme disease is passed to humans by the bite of black-legged ticks (also known as deer ticks in the eastern United States) and western black-legged ticks infected with the bacterium "Borrelia burgdorferi". The Lyme disease bacterium normally lives in mice, squirrels, and other small mammals. Cat fleas and ticks can carry pathogenic organisms that infect a person with Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases.
   "Borrelia" are microaerophilic and slow-growing—the primary reason for the long delays when diagnosing Lyme disease—and have been found to have greater strain diversity than previously estimated. The strains differ in clinical symptoms and/or presentation as well as geographic distribution.
  
  Except for "Borrelia recurrentis" (which causes louse-borne relapsing fever and is transmitted by the human body louse), all known species are believed to be transmitted by ticks.
  
  Section::::Species and strains.
   The phenomenon of nonviraemic or nonsystemic transmission turns out to be widespread – it has been subsequently observed with many other viruses transmitted by ticks, black flies and mosquitos, including major human pathogens such as West Nile virus, as well as other pathogens, including the spirochaete "Borrelia burgdorferi", which causes Lyme disease. – and important in natural transmission. Nuttall's group has continued to study the phenomenon, and have shown that immunity to tick-borne encephalitis virus does not prevent nonsystemic transmission.
  
  Section::::Research.:Tick saliva.
   In South America, tick-borne disease recognition and occurrence is rising. Ticks carrying "B. burgdorferi" "s.l.", as well as canine and human tick-borne diseases, have been reported widely in Brazil, but the subspecies of "Borrelia" has not yet been defined. The first reported case of Lyme disease in Brazil was made in 1993 in Sao Paulo. "B. burgdorferi" "sensu stricto" antigens in patients have been identified in Colombia and in Bolivia. B. burgorferi has been reported in Bay Islands of Honduras.
  
  In Northern Africa, "B. burgdorferi" "s.s." has been identified in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia.
   The incubation period from infection to the onset of symptoms is usually one to two weeks, but can be much shorter (days), or much longer (months to years). Lyme symptoms most often occur from May to September, because the nymphal stage of the tick is responsible for most cases. Asymptomatic infection exists, but occurs in less than 7% of infected individuals in the United States. Asymptomatic infection may be much more common among those infected in Europe.
  
  Section::::Signs and symptoms.:Early localized infection.
   BULLET::::- The exploration of the possibility that roosting birds play a key part in perpetuating the viruses that cause eastern equine encephalitis virus and West Nile encephalitis.
  
  BULLET::::- Led the Phase II testing of the SmithKline Beecham Lyme disease vaccine among residents of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Block Island.
  
  Section::::Accomplishments and legacy.:"Ixodes dammini".
  
  "Ixodes dammini", is responsible not only for the emergence of babesiosis in the U.S., but for a whole new group of tick-borne diseases, the best known of which is Lyme disease.
   For example, secondary person-to-person spread may occur after a common source exposure or an environmental vectors may spread a zoonotic diseases agent.
  
  Section::::Transmission.
  
  BULLET::::- Airborne transmission: Airborne transmission is the spread of infection by droplet nuclei or dust in the air. Without the intervention of winds or drafts the distance over which airborne infection takes place is short, say 10 to 20 feet.
  
  BULLET::::- Arthropod transmission: Arthropod transmission takes place by an insect, either mechanically through a contaminated proboscis or feet, or biologically when there is growth or replication of an organism in the arthropod.
   Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in North America and Europe, and one of the fastest-growing infectious diseases in the United States. Of cases reported to the United States CDC, the ratio of Lyme disease infection is 7.9 cases for every 100,000 persons. In the ten states where Lyme disease is most common, the average was 31.6 cases for every 100,000 persons for the year 2005.
   In the early 1980s, Nuttall started to study viruses transmitted by ticks, initially focusing on orbiviruses, nairoviruses and thogotoviruses. While performing experiments designed to explore whether "Thogoto virus", an influenza-like virus, can be transmitted between ticks during mating, Nuttall and her colleagues unexpectedly found that control ticks became infected. They discovered that the virus can be transmitted between infected and uninfected ticks when they feed simultaneously on apparently uninfected guinea pigs, without the virus being present at a detectable level in the blood. With Milan Labuda, Nuttall subsequently demonstrated the same phenomenon with tick-borne encephalitis virus, a better-understood arthropod-transmitted virus.
   Given the wide range of bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens that cause debilitating and life-threatening illness, the ability to quickly identify the cause of infection is important yet often challenging. For example, more than half of cases of encephalitis, a severe illness affecting the brain, remain undiagnosed, despite extensive testing using state-of-the-art clinical laboratory methods. Metagenomics is currently being researched for clinical use, and shows promise as a sensitive and rapid way to diagnose infection using a single all-encompassing test. This test is similar to current PCR tests; however, amplification of genetic material is unbiased rather than using primers for a specific infectious agent. This amplification step is followed by next-generation sequencing and alignment comparisons using large databases of thousands of organismic and viral genomes.
   The identification of the causative organism of Lyme Disease and its effective treatment were important discoveries, but its long-term course was largely unknown and it continued to grow as a public health problem. The group assembled the only prospectively followed group of Lyme disease patients in Nantucket Island to determine its long-term consequences. They also identified the reasons why people did not practice health behaviors to avoid tick bites. At a time when a new Lyme vaccine was being withdrawn from the market and rates of disease were continuing to climb the group showed that a novel intervention using street entertainers on the ferry boats to Nantucket prevented the disease in a clinical trial of some 30,000 passengers.
  
presuppositions: Lyme Disease takes 48 hours to transmit; viruses and bacteria transmit instantly. Lyme disease takes 48 hours to transmit.
corrections: Lyme Disease takes 24 hours to transmit and viruses and bacteria aren't transmitted instantly. Lyme disease takes 24 hours to transmit, not 48.
raw_presuppositions: Lyme Disease takes 48 hours to transmit; viruses and bacteria transmit instantly. Lyme disease takes 48 hours to transmit.
raw_corrections: Lyme Disease takes 24 hours to transmit and viruses and bacteria aren't transmitted instantly. Lyme disease takes 24 hours to transmit, not 48.