Can antibiotic: what to do if the baby was bitten by a tick

Many parents mistakenly believe that newborns and children under one year are insured against encounters with ticks. However, medical practice proves the opposite. This was told on September 9 to journalists by an infectious disease doctor, head of the organizational and methodological department of the City Children's Infectious Clinical Hospital Alina Savenko, the correspondent of the Minsk-Novosti agency reports.

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According to the expert, society has long believed that the problem of Lyme borreliosis (an infectious disease that is transmitted through the bites of infected ticks) does not affect infants.

- But the tick does not care how much the child, said Savenko. The smallest patient in my practice was a three-month-old boy, my son. The tick was found under the diaper. Nobody's insured.

The doctor stressed that even if the child is vaccinated, you can not relax. The current vaccine effectively protects only against tick-borne encephalitis. There is no vaccine for Lyme borreliosis yet - its development by the world medical community is still being conducted due to the complexity of creating vaccines against bacterial infections. The expert expressed hope that such a drug will appear on the market in the next 10 years.

The speaker noted that many parents are concerned about the question of whether it is possible to give young children antibiotics after a tick bite.

Antibiotic prophylaxis is mandatory for a child of any age, the infectious disease specialist explained. As for the popular drug doxycycline, today medical recommendations have changed in the direction of reducing the age of its use. Previously, it was believed that even a single reception is dangerous. However, modern studies have proven that a preventive dose of doxycycline is safe. The drug does not inhibit the growth of cartilage tissue and does not affect the color of the teeth.

The doctor added: if a tick is found in a child, it is necessary to immediately show it to the pediatrician. The main thing is not to self-medicate!

- The pediatrician should calculate the exact and safe prophylactic dose of the antibiotic per weight of the child, Savenko explained. Preventive use of the drug should be started in the first 72 hours after a tick bite.