A new sector is on the rise due to recent tick cri

[Fenlander]

The recent tick crisis that has afflicted Turkey and killed 37 people in the last two months has resulted in the creation of a new market for enterprising entrepreneurs.

Many entrepreneurs have turned their creative business ideas to reality in the fight against the tick. The result is a new business sector and a variety of anti-tick products – from tick-fighting hats to tick-removing stickers – emerging in the market.

Many customers, from employees of private companies to picnickers, have shown great interest in the anti-tick products that have attained remarkably high sales rates in recent weeks. Players in the anti-tick products market argue any investor that enters their highly profitable market will not regret it since the present tick-phobia is one gripping the entire country. On the other hand, employees in disinfectant firms are working overtime to develop new formulas to fight ticks.

However, there is also the other side of the coin. The tick crisis has resulted in some businesses incurring large losses. Players in the open-air entertainment sector are sad to see their clientele tilting toward boat tours while chicken sellers are disappointed at this year's stagnant barbecue season.



Anti-tick t-shirts, hats and trousers:

As insecticides have largely been applied in many areas around the country as part of measures taken against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a fatal illness transmitted by tick bites, investors in the anti-tick products market are elated thanks to high sales rates.

In addition to anti-insect sprays, specially designed anti-tick t-shirts, hats and trousers that keep not only ticks but mosquitoes, fleas and the like at a five-meter distance from the wearer are among the most popular anti-tick products nowadays. The effectiveness of these clothes lasts six months.

An anti-tick hat-t-shirt-trousers set produced by Narkon Tekstil, a private Turkish ready-to-wear company, has hit a sales rate of 20,000 only within the last month and a half.

“Our main goal is to hit a sales level of 50,000 by the end of this year,” said Tolga Narbay, executive board member of Narkon Tekstil. He said they receive the most demand for their products from central Anatolian provinces. Narkon's products are sold in all branches of Boyner, a prominent fashion brand in Turkey, and a total of 90 other stores. Narbay said they will sell their products to drugstores as well given the increasing demand from them. Narkon also exports its anti-tick products to Germany.

On the other hand, Gurur Ticaret, a producer of anti-tick hats for the Turkish Armed Forces, receives requests from many private companies that ask if it can produce promotional hats for them.

Orhan Gökyayla is the owner of Gurur Ticaret, which produces a unique type of hat that contains in its fabric a substance used by the U.S. Army to prevent ticks from sticking on human skin. This anti-tick hat keeps the ticks at a five-meter distance from the wearer, said Gökyayla, adding that the first client for their product was the Turkish Armed Forces. The anti-tick hat has also created great interest in the private sector. Many companies are knocking at the doors of Gurur Ticaret and asking it if it can produce promotional hats for them. “We have had contacts with many firms so far. Lipton, Çaykur and Turkcell have asked us if we could produce promotional anti-tick hats for them. Hats that carry their brand logos… We shall enter into an agreement with one of those companies in the course of this week,” said Gökyaylý.

See a tick? Call a fumigation company!

There has been a boom in the number of calls fumigation companies have received in the last two months. The fumigation sector has grown 100 percent in the same period. “Normally, we used to fumigate 10 places a day. Now, we send our staff to 300 places a day,” said Ömer Gezer, owner of the Turkish conglomerate Gezer. The increasing demand for fumigation has also paved the way for pirate fumigation companies, he added.

The sector has grown 100 percent, said Ali Turgut, manager of the Istanbul-based Proser Insect Control Service. Turgut said the most demand comes from villa residents in Beykoz, Kilyos, Zekeriyaköy, and Çatalca districts of Istanbul. Fumigating gardens or fields costs YTL 150 per hectare while it costs between Ykr 15 and Ykr 50 per square meter in houses. Meanwhile, anti-tick stickers that help remove a tick from one's skin have hit a sales level of 10,000 within the last two months. Sold for YTL 5 at drugstores, these imported tick-removing stickers will have to compete with domestically produced ones in the upcoming days. To promote its tick-removing sticker, a private Turkish company is currently in contact with yet another Turkish brand, BIM, which is a well-known supermarket chain in the country. If a deal is reached, then domestically produced tick-removing stickers will be on the market at a price of YTL 1.5 or YTL 2

[Fenlander]

Tick-borne fever kills 11 people in Turkey this year
Wed Jun 20, 2007 4:12pm BST Email | Print | Share| Single Page| Recommend (0) [-] Text [+] ANKARA (Reuters) - A tick-borne fever has killed 11 people in Turkey this year, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

The severe disease, known as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, mainly strikes farm and slaughterhouse workers in the countryside in central Anatolia and Black Sea regions.

There have been 191 confirmed cases this year, the ministry said in a statement.

Local media said ticks carrying the virus are multiplying faster than usual due to global warming and high temperatures.

The disease normally occurs through bites from infected ticks or from direct contact with infected blood and tissue from livestock. Human to human transmission, through exposure to contaminated blood, is more rare.

The latest victim, taking the number dead to 11, was a 36-year old from the central Anatolian province Sivas.

The disease killed at least 20 people in Turkey last year.

There is no vaccine against the disease, which causes dizziness, high fever, muscle pain and vomiting. A body rash and bleeding from the bowels and gums, often accompanied by hepatitis and pulmonary failure, follow in severe cases.

The mortality rate can reach 30 percent from the disease, which was first identified in Crimea in 1944 and later appeared in Congo.

[Fenlander]

Unexpected twist in fashion: tick earrings


Ticks, responsible for a number of deaths in Turkey over the past few years due to Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), are the unlikely inspiration behind a new and unusual fashion trend.




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Young girls are already showing a lot of interest in a Gaziantep-based jewelry store’s “tick” earrings, designed in an effort to raise public awareness of ticks.
The tick-borne disease CCHF was first seen in Turkey in 2002, causing 12 deaths the same year. In the first three months of 2008 over 200 people have sought medical help for tick-related symptoms and the disease is clearly on many people’s minds. There are more than 30 countries around the world that have seen cases of CCHF, and though there is as yet no known cure, the tick seems to have served as inspiration for some fashion-inclined entrepreneurs.

Passersby on Gaziantep’s Hakim Mehmet Uygun Boulevard have no doubt noticed the sign in the window of jewelry store Moda Taký Dunyasý, announcing that “different varieties of tick earrings have arrived.” Store owner Ahmet Aslan says: “People are very surprised when they first hear about this. But when they see these colorful earrings, they like them and wind up buying them.”

The tick earrings are made in Ýstanbul and are priced from just YTL 1.5 a pair. Aslan, who notes that young girls in particular have shown a great deal of interest in the earrings, says: “Not much is currently known about ticks in our country. In order to get the people of Turkey to learn more about them, we are selling these earrings at a very cheap price, and not making any profit. There is much more interest being shown in these earrings than we expected, actually.”