Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases
Agenda item 3 is ticks and tick-borne diseases. Committee members will recall that John Scott is the committee's reporter on the tick task force. This is his opportunity to give us some feedback on the 7 November meeting. The task force was set up last summer and its next meeting will be in the spring.
We had a very good meeting. The key concern was the increase in Lyme disease in the human population. Tick-borne diseases have been around in animals for hundreds of years, but there has been an increase in the number of cases of Lyme disease, especially as sheep come off the hills and particularly in the north and west of Scotland, which is one of the key areas. As the population at large takes greater countryside access, the potential for Lyme disease to spread will increase. That is a real issue.
It is likely that climate change will further enhance the environment in which ticks breed, which will exacerbate the problem.
Ticks are a worldwide problem, and there are different ticks in different parts of the world that carry and transmit different diseases—particularly encephalopathies, which are even more serious than Lyme disease.
As paragraph 13 of the briefing note states, we are putting together a working group to disseminate information. The main points of the meeting are summarised in paragraph 15. There needs to be greater awareness among general practitioners—and doctors generally—about tick-borne diseases, and a leaflet should be distributed. Several were produced on that day, which will form a template for yet another leaflet.
There needs to be a far greater exchange of knowledge between organisations, as it is evident that there is not much of that at the moment. For example, there is a huge wealth of knowledge in the Moredun Research Institute, which developed the louping-ill vaccine for sheep many years ago. There is a bank of knowledge there and I am certain that there is a crossover of knowledge between the medical and veterinary professions that should be tapped into. With that in mind, a communications group will be set up to raise awareness.
That is the long and the short of it. The meeting lasted just over an hour and the task force's work is still in progress. The minister, Mike Russell, is, as you would expect, keen to see outcomes from such meetings rather than their being just talking shops. That is certainly the direction of travel at the moment.
Thank you, John. As a constituency MSP, I have had the issue of Lyme disease raised with me. There are huge issues surrounding its diagnosis and I suspect that, for most MSPs, the potential for human illness is the most concerning aspect.
I acknowledge the work that John Scott is doing on the subject. It may seem trivial, but it is far from that. It can have serious consequences and I am glad that he is paying attention to it.
I am interested in awareness raising. Last summer, I happened to be in a hotel reception area somewhere in the Highlands—I will not say where—when a guest asked about an insect that had burrowed into her arm. Through no fault of her own, the hotel receptionist, who happened to come from another country, knew nothing about it. That might sound trivial, but there is a certain way to remove ticks and raising awareness about it in the leisure industry is important because, increasingly, people are walking on our hillsides. If that matter was not discussed, I would encourage you to discuss it.
It certainly was discussed. A lot of information about and tools for removing ticks sensibly are available, although it depends on the size of the tick. A mature tick is about a quarter of an inch long, whereas you can barely see a very small one when it first attaches itself to you.
As you can imagine, there is a balance to be struck between raising public awareness and providing information about removing ticks, and alarming the public and frightening them off our hills. We all share the view that we want people to have such access to enhance their lives and the tourism industry. GPs also need to be more aware, particularly of the early symptoms of Lyme disease. I might have said this in my previous report to the committee, but it is vital to know that the sooner you take a tick off your body, the less likely you are to attract disease, because it takes up to 24 hours for the disease to move from the animal's body through its salivary glands into yours.
I echo Peter Peacock's comments about John Scott's work on the subject.
I was looking at the report of the task force's meeting in April, which says that
"the Minister identified some immediate actions for this summer—production of an information leaflet on ticks and tick-borne diseases for circulation in hard copy and in a downloadable form".
He seems to be requesting the same thing come November. I wonder whether that action did not happen, because there was no reference to it in the November meeting.
I agree with John Scott's point about getting a balance between spreading information and being alarmist—the representative from Forest Research indicated the same thing in April. Can you say any more about the sort of information that the minister was looking to impart to and through VisitScotland?
The point about GPs is pertinent. Looking at the list of attendees at the April meeting compared with those who were there in November, you appear to have lost NHS Highland and the Scottish Government chief medical officer directorate and replaced them with someone from Jamie McGrigor's office. That does not seem a fair swap. Was it the intention to try to ensure that someone from NHS boards or the CMO's office would be involved in future meetings? That seems critical to the point about the GPs.
Notwithstanding the gratuitous swipe at Jamie McGrigor—I can only recommend Douglas Pattulo to you as a valued member of Jamie's staff and, indeed, our team—it was noted by Minister Russell that it was a matter of concern that the chief medical officer was not there and had had to call off at very short notice.
On your point about the leaflet, I do not think that adequate communication work was done, despite the good intentions of those at the April meeting. There was enthusiasm for such work to be addressed more fully and better. Again, the minister was robust in his expectation that results would be achieved. We must move to achieving results fairly quickly. That said, there is still a need to get people to work together, which is why it is so important that a communications team is set up and starts producing stuff.
I reiterate what I said at our meeting on 28 May: ticks are not just an issue for people walking in the countryside; they can be picked up in suburban gardens and folk need to be aware of that. Some people think, "I'm not going up into the hills, so I don't have a problem", but that is not the case. Awareness of the problem needs to be disseminated in such a way that people do not imagine that it is only an issue if they go for long walks in the country.
I do not want us to go on about the subject for too long, but Elaine Murray has a question.
I have not been a member of the committee for long, so I was not previously aware of John Scott's involvement with the task force. I presume that louping-ill is the equivalent of Lyme disease in animals.
It is a disease of sheep, in particular. Red water is a disease of cattle. There is a generic group of diseases known as tick-borne diseases.
Are all the diseases that we are discussing tick-borne diseases?
Yes.
My experience is of finding ticks on dogs that they have attacked. Is that linked in any way to the transmission of tick-borne diseases to people?
Absolutely. Uncomfortably, ticks on dogs or cats can be brought into people's living rooms, where they may fall off or remove themselves from the carrier and breed. If people have been in the countryside and even, as Roseanna Cunningham said, in the garden, they need to be aware that dry vegetation such as dry bracken, whin bushes, forestry, woodland or shrub is an ideal breeding ground for ticks. Much housing is on reclaimed farmland; the parasites on that land remain there even after the houses are built.
I do not want to go on about the problem, but it is not limited to rural areas, farmland or even reclaimed farmland. It can affect suburban gardens.
Absolutely.
I will stop the discussion now, as we have spent a considerable amount of time on it. I am surprised and heartened by the enthusiasm and interest in the issue that members have shown. We will send the Official Report of today's meeting to the task force, to make clear the committee's concerns in respect of the dissemination of information.