Selectmen in Oak Bluffs and Chilmark last night threw their full support behind a plan to add a second two-week shotgun season for deer in January next year.

The spread of disease-carrying ticks on Martha’s Vineyard is a public health crisis, a biologist and longtime Island physician said this week.

A recent survey on the Cape has revealed Powassan, a potentially fatal disease carried by deer ticks. Despite a growing list of tick-borne diseases in the region, there are no plans for tick surveillance on the Vineyard.

Scientists at MIT are hoping to prevent Lyme disease on the Vineyard by releasing large numbers of genetically engineered mice into the wild. The project would still be years down the road.

As tick-borne diseases continue to be a source of growing public health concern on the Vineyard, a panel discussion convenes Wednesday to discuss a potential new approach to curbing Lyme and other infections.

With funding for the Island’s tick-borne illness reduction initiative soon to end, health agents and others face an uphill battle in stemming the advance of lone star ticks, which have gained a foothold.