Tick- and mosquito-borne diseases more than triple, since 2004, in the US

With summer around the corner, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts are warning — beware the bugs!

A new report from the agency reveals that diseases transmitted through the bites of blood-feeding ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas are a “growing public health problem” in the United States.

Reported cases of what are called vector-borne diseases have more than tripled nationwide, growing from 27,388 cases reported in 2004 to a whopping 96,075 cases reported in 2016, according to the new Vital Signs report published by the CDC on Tuesday.

Vector-borne diseases are illnesses that are transmitted by vectors, or blood-feeding ticks and insects capable of transmitting pathogens — bacteria, viruses, or parasites — from one host to another. Pathogens, transmitted through a vector’s bite, cause illness. These include Lyme disease, West Nile virus and Zika virus, to name a few.

“It’s very important that the public is very aware that these are more than summertime nuisances — you can get very severe diseases from ticks and mosquitoes,” said Dr. Lyle Petersen, an author of the report and director of the CDC’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, who actually had West Nile virus himself from a mosquito bite in 2003.