ALBANY — Despite a federal report ranking New York third in the nation for the number of Lyme disease diagnoses, not a penny has been set aside in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive budget for research, prevention or treatment of the disease or other tick-borne illnesses.

The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate is that the number of people nationally who contract Lyme each year is growing to nearly 500,000; state Sen. Sue Serino, a Hudson Valley Republican, and other lawmakers are urging their colleagues to include $1.5 million to tackle tick-related diseases.

Serino said state funding for these efforts has been lackluster in recent years despite the Legislature adding funding for Lyme research, treatment and prevention. In 2018, $1 million was budgeted by legislators for the efforts, but in the following years that dwindled to $250,000 annually.

In New York’s fiscal year 2022, the proposed budget doesn’t include the $69,400 the governor typically would include for the state Department of Health for tick-borne services, Serino said.

“Budgets are all about priorities,” she said. “It’s actually a drop in the bucket to our massive state budget, and would go a long way in helping keep New Yorkers healthy and tick free.”

Detecting Lyme in its early stages is difficult. Current diagnostic testing is unreliable, and many people often are misdiagnosed for years. There are few signs of the disease beyond a distinctive circular rash, often described as a bulls-eye, that can appear around the site of the tick bite. But it only appears in 42 percent of infected individuals. Other symptoms include fever, aches and pains, and fatigue.

The long-term impacts from Lyme can be debilitating and, at times, deadly.

And cases of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are on the rise in communities across the state, no longer concentrated in the Hudson Valley and Long Island — areas that have been plagued by tick-borne illnesses for years.

Brian Leydet, assistant professor of environmental forestry and biology at SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry, said New York is the “epicenter” for lyme and other tick-borne diseases. In fact, analysis the college has done on Lyme disease across the state shows declines in regions where tick-borne diseases were rampant while cases have soared in the North Country, central and western New York, and the Southern Tier.

“Ticks are spreading because of global climate change,” he said. “Ticks and their diseases are a significant public health threat and ultimately an environmental issue. The research at ESF helps us understand what types of landscapes are resilient to the spread of the tick or susceptible to the spread of the tick.”

Meanwhile, other dangerous tick-borne illnesses are popping up that further complicate prevention and treatment. For example, Anaplasmosis, another tick-borne illness, is on the rise in the Adirondacks and upstate New York.

Some of the symptoms can include fever, muscle aches and respiratory failure, all similar signs of the infectious coronavirus disease that has killed more than 500,000 people in the United States since COVID-19 entered the country early last year. Anaplasmosis, if left untreated, can also be fatal.