Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have been granted £2.5 million to study the Lyme disease, which is a tick-borne bacterial disease, and find out ways to preclude it.

The symptoms of Lyme disease or borreliosis include rashes, paralysis, severe pain, and can also lead to death in acute conditions.

These tiny creatures can lead to a severe disease named tick-borne encephalitis (TBE).

They come second after mosquitoes as transmitters of infections to humans.

In the United Kingdom, people who go for trekking and stay in camps are the easy targets for these ticks to transmit the disease.

It is noted that in recent years, cases of Lyme disease has gone up significantly in Scotland.

TBE has widely spread in 27 other European countries, which includes Germany and Croatia, where tourists are worst-affected by this disease.

As per the Health Protection Scotland, in the year 2000, only 37 cases of borreliosis were reported. But in the previous year, the number went up to 605, which is quite alarming.

Scientists are trying hard to figure out how come the viruses and bacteria stay for such a long time in ticks without affecting them.

According to scientists, changing climatic conditions and ever-changing globalisation can facilitate the spreading of ticks in other regions also.