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20/01/2025

- Singapore's Tick Problem -

When I first came to Singapore, the local ticks were virtually unknown. No one in the country could identify them, their ecology was a mystery, and most importantly, the species which attack humans had never been researched in any detail. So I did the obvious thing and set out to study the ticks of Singapore; which I've been doing ever since. This week we filled in another piece of the puzzle with the results of a national surveillance program focused on understanding the ticks which attack humans in Singapore. The study is published in the journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases and can be accessed at the link below. Doing this sort of work allows us to identify key tick species of medical importance. This in turn allows us to focus efforts at characterising the pathogens they spread and identifying weaknesses in their ecology which we can exploit to control them. In Singapore, the most medically important species is the gilded boar tick (Dermacentor auratus) which alone is responsible for more than half of all tick infestations and can be seen here attached to the eyelid of an unlucky human!

Check out the study here :

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387961927_Nation-wide_surveillance_of_tick_Acari_Ixodidae_infestations_of_humans_in_Singapore

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877959X25000056