The former England rugby captain Matt Dawson has revealed he had to undergo heart surgery after being bitten by a tick in Britain.
He developed feverish symptoms after visiting a park in London early last year and was later diagnosed with Lyme disease, he told the BBC.
The bacterial infection, caused by infected ticks, can lead to conditions such as meningitis or heart failure if left untreated and can even prove fatal.
Dawson, 44, said: “I’d heard of Lyme disease before. It was something I’d always associated with places abroad – on the continent, in America, wherever there were deer.
“There’s no way that I would’ve walked through a wood or a forest with my kids and gone back home and thought, right, I’ll just check for some ticks just to make sure everything is fine. I just wouldn’t have thought of that.”
He added: “It was a really scary time for me and my family. Such a tiny creature caused me to end up needing heart surgery.”
Dawson is now free of the disease, having undergone multiple heart operations and 18 months of treatment.
But he added: “I’m still on medication and its going to take a lot of time for the heart to fully recover. This is not something that should be looked at like: ‘oh it’s only a tick, a tick is a bit like a flea, its fine!’
“These ticks carry some really quite potent, serious bacteria and they can cause you a lot of problems. Raising awareness of them is imperative.”
Dawson has teamed up with The Big Tick Project, which was co-founded by the TV presenter Chris Packham, to raise awareness of the dangers of ticks.
According to the NHS, there are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 new cases of Lyme disease in England and Wales each year. The health service advises that the condition can be treated effectively if the symptoms, which can include a circular rash around the bite, are detected early.