Introduction
Lyme Disease
Pests & Public Health: What’s the threat?
Pests are animals or plants that damage people and our food, and our homes and community. Many pests, including mosquitoes, fleas, and rats, can bite. Their real threat, however, is that they can spread diseases, sometimes through their bite, such as mosquitoes, or by their droppings or activities. Cockroaches are the biggest trigger for asthma attacks in urban children (it’s cats for suburban children). Asthma is the largest cause of school absences. Controlling cockroaches is important to making or communities healthy.
Key public health threats from pests are:
- Asthma
- Bat bugs & bird mites
- Bed bugs
- Hanta Virus
- LCMV (Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis)
- Leptospiriosis
- Lyme Disease
- Other infectious disease
- Parasites
- Plague
- Rat bites
- Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
- Salmonella
- Spiders
- Stinging Insects
- West Nile Virus
