Spike in Lyme disease cases among kids worries Pittsburgh doctors

PITTSBURGH — It’s a record year at the UPMC Children’s Hospital — but it’s not something doctors are celebrating.

They’ve seen a spike in Lyme disease cases among kids.

“We are not only seeing a lot of cases we are seeing a lot of severe cases too,” explained Dr. Andrew Nowalk from the UPMC Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Nowalk is the clinical director for the infectious disease division at the children’s hospital.

So far this year, they’ve had 700 cases of Lyme disease and 300 of those cases were just in June alone.

“It’s a lot of kids. It’s our most commonly diagnosis infectious dense right now, way more than covid way more than any viral infection that we are seeing at the hospital.”

Why the increase in cases?

A lot of it has to do with more people being outside more often.

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“I think everyone is relaxing from covid pandemic calming down, people are out and about and not just getting together but more vacations hikes, getting out in the wilderness.”

Nowalk’s fear is that things could get worse before the end of the summer.

“Our biggest months every year are June, July, August, so we started very bad with a record June and moving into July and august, it’s possible we will equal the the number of record in these three months.”

Nowalk wants people to remember that ticks like grassy areas, and the dusk and dawn parts of the day. He suggests wearing lighter clothing, that way you can see if a tick is on you.

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