Deer have been implicated in the distribution and transmission of which disease?

Deer have been implicated in the distribution and transmission of which disease?

• A. Lyme disease
• B. Rabies
• C. West Nile virus
• D. Tularemia

Answer: (A)

Deer shape the distribution of the ticks that carry Lyme disease. They are important hosts for adult ticks, supplying blood meals that allow tick populations to persist and spread into new areas. This increases the likelihood that humans encounter infected ticks, even though the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi themselves are maintained mainly in small mammals. So deer aren’t directly transmitting the disease, but they enable the tick vectors to thrive and move, linking deer presence to higher Lyme disease risk. The other diseases don’t share this same deer-driven tick ecology: rabies is spread by bites from infected mammals like raccoons or bats, West Nile virus is mosquito-borne with birds as primary hosts, and tularemia is mainly associated with rabbits and rodents and their insect vectors.

Deer shape the distribution of the ticks that carry Lyme disease. They are important hosts for adult ticks, supplying blood meals that allow tick populations to persist and spread into new areas. This increases the likelihood that humans encounter infected ticks, even though the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi themselves are maintained mainly in small mammals. So deer aren’t directly transmitting the disease, but they enable the tick vectors to thrive and move, linking deer presence to higher Lyme disease risk. The other diseases don’t share this same deer-driven tick ecology: rabies is spread by bites from infected mammals like raccoons or bats, West Nile virus is mosquito-borne with birds as primary hosts, and tularemia is mainly associated with rabbits and rodents and their insect vectors.