Emergency rooms across the United States are seeing more patients for tick bites than at any comparable point in nearly a decade, and public health researchers say 2026 is shaping up to be one of the worst tick-borne disease years on record.
Emergency department visits for tick bites increased more than 25 percent in April 2026 compared to April 2025, according to CDC data cited at a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health media briefing on May 5, 2026. In concrete numbers, April 2026 saw 104 ER visits for tick bites per 100,000 total ER visits — up from 68 in April 2025, according to preliminary data from the CDC's Tick Bite Tracker.
