Asia Pac Allergy.
2018 Jul;8(3):e31. 10.5415/apallergy.2018.8.e31.
A novel Australian tick Ixodes (Endopalpiger) australiensis inducing mammalian meat allergy after tick bite
- Affiliations
-
- 1Department of Biological Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117558.
- 2Allergy West, Perth, WA 6149, Australia.
- 3Tick-induced Allergies Research and Awareness Centre, Chatswood, NSW 2067, Australia. vannunen@med.usyd.edu.au
- 4Northern Clinical School, Sydney Medical School, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
- KMID: 2417978
- DOI: http://doi.org/10.5415/apallergy.2018.8.e31
Abstract
- Tick-induced mammalian meat allergy has become an emergent allergy world-wide after van Nunen et al. first described the association between tick bites and the development of mammalian meat allergy in 2007. Cases of mammalian meat allergy have now been reported on all 6 continents where humans are bitten by ticks, in 17 countries - Australia, United States of America (USA), Europe (France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Italy, and Norway), Asia (Korea and Japan), Central America (Panama), South America (Brazil), and Africa (South Africa and Ivory Coast). To date, in each of these countries, bites from only a single tick species have been linked to the development of mammalian meat allergy: Ixodes holocyclus (Australia), Amblyomma americanum (USA), Ixodes ricinus (Europe), and Ixodes cajennense (Panama) are confirmed as culprits, and Ixodes nipponensis (Japan and Korea), Amblyomma sculptum (Brazil), Amblyomma variegatum (Ivory Coast), and Haemaphysalis longicornis (Japan) suspected of provoking mammalian meat allergy after tick bite. Other tick species remain to be formally identified (South Africa). Identification of tick species associated with development of mammalian meat allergy is crucial to the uptake of public health measures to prevent tick bites from culprit tick species, for both individuals living in these tick-endemic areas and those who choose to visit these regions. We report a tick associated with the enhancement of mammalian meat anaphylaxis after tick bite which is novel for both Australia and the world and establishes Ixodes (Endopalpiger) australiensis as a second tick species associated with mammalian meat allergy in Australia.
