CDC: Fairfield County Lyme Disease Numbers Are Scary

It is certainly no surprise that Lyme Disease is an issue in Connecticut. If you live in these parts, you probably know someone who has it, if you haven't been bitten by that little blood sucking disease carrying creepy tick yourself. Yup, we know all about it. Heck, we named the damned disease!

According to bayarealyme.org, even though the illness goes back thousands of years (it was recently discovered in a 5,300 year old mummy), it was named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut in the mid 1970s, after children, who had been bitten by a tick in the same area of the Nutmeg state, fell ill with a rash and similar symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that in 2016, Fairfield County had 310 cases. The report spans the years from 2000-2016. While last year's number is quite a drop from 2008, when there were 1,635 cases reported (don't forget, all instances do not get reported), Fairfield (310 cases), Litchfield (127 cases), New Haven (351 cases), New London (250 cases), and Hartford (229 cases) counties reported almost 1,300 cases in 2016.

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html