Weekly emergency visits for tick bites are on the rise in the Midwest, and Kendall County is tracking the parasites.
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 11:53PMWeekly emergency visits for tick bites are on the rise this spring, reaching their highest level in nearly a decade, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Kendall County, experts are monitoring the presence of ticks and associated tickborne illnesses. Physicians often rely on information provided by local and state health departments that starts with the capture of ticks. Within seconds recently, Lauren Belville with the Kendall County Health Department captured her first tick. Belville went to a local forest preserve for what's known as a "tick drag": a surveillance method used by health officials to collect ticks and monitor for disease.
"So the flannel sheet kind of mimics a fur, and then they're thinking they're hitching a ride onto some wild animal," Belville said. It's a piece of cloth, roughly 3 feet by 3 feet, attached to a rod. The method is fairly simple, but the results are astounding. In less than an hour, 18 ticks were collected: four dog ticks and 14 deer ticks.
"It's good to know what's out there. And then we teach doctors; we teach children. We'll teach anyone willing to listen, really about what we find, what that means and how you can get help," Belville said. Different ticks carry different disease and some carry nothing.
But in Kendall County, Belville says the prevalence of ticks carrying of Lyme disease is increasing.
"The ticks we had submitted were right around 36% positive for Lyme disease, roughly eight, nine years ago. Our last couple years of testing that we have submitted, we are running in the 48 to 53% positive for Lyme disease in the deer tick population in Kendall County," Belville said. And there's a new concern: Belville collected a pair of Lone Star ticks.
The species is known for causing Alpha-gal syndrome: an allergic reaction to a sugar molecule found mainly in red meat and dairy products. Public Health Experts with Johns Hopkins University are sounding the alarm on an active tick season.
"This year, we've already seen 25% more hospital visits for tick bites in April than we did by this time last year. And this doesn't include visits to urgent cares or to primary caregivers, primary doctors," said Thomas Hart, with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Experts say milder winters brought on by climate change may be to blame for increasing tick populations, and therefore more illnesses brought on by the tiny parasites.
If you suspect you've been bitten by a tick, it's best to see a doctor as soon as possible, while time is still on your side for treatment.
Bite Lyme Disease Symptoms Alpha Gal Ticks In Illinois 19047009
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