I was disappointed over the lack of links in a web(!) article, so I did some research over this comment: Poland notes that since then, Lyme has become more widespread and is now the most common tick-borne disease in the country.
Dr. Gregory Poland works in Mayo Clinic which is based in Minnesota. Here are statistics for Lyme disease in that country:
And some links to the CDC sites about other tick-borne diseases prevalent in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/ (most of these also include statistics on incidence and geographic distribution)
A lot of people get confused because the term state can refer to either a federated state (like in the U.S.) or a sovereign state (hence the term, "head of state" for the leader of a country).
Also, it's even more confusing because the states used to be considered different nations, united. Hence why they used to be called "these united states." Just an FYI.
Given that "States" is in our country's name, as well as the fact that they are "United", I think people should reasonably expect that its subdivisions are not called "countries".
And some links to the CDC sites about other tick-borne diseases prevalent in the US: http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/ (most of these also include statistics on incidence and geographic distribution)