Article content

Albertans who discover ticks on themselves or their animals are being asked to submit the bugs to help the province’s monitoring program for the bacteria associated with Lyme disease.

The government says previous testing has found little risk of getting Lyme disease in Alberta, because the types of ticks that carry the bacteria do not have well established populations in the province.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Albertans asked to submit ticks to aid provincial monitoring efforts Back to video

Nonetheless, the government has kept up a monitoring program that was expanded in 2013 to include ticks found on people and in the environment.

“Thanks to Albertans who have submitted ticks, government has been able to monitor what types of ticks are in the province,” Dr. Kristin Klein, deputy medical officer of health for Alberta Health, said in a written statement.

“Although the risk of getting Lyme disease in Alberta is very low, I encourage Albertans to keep submitting ticks they find so we can continue to assess this risk.”