[Arachnids as risk factors in occupational exposure]

Abstract

Arachnids pose two types of occupational hazard, mainly affecting agricultural and forestry workers. The first type is associated with bites of ticks, mites and spiders resulting in a local skin inflammation, systemic symptoms due to intoxication and the transmission of pathogenic viruses or bacteria, mainly caused by tick vectors. The second type is associated with the exposure to storage mites which cause asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis in farmers and grain workers.