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Lyme Disease From a Transfusion?

THE DOCTOR’S WORLD; Lyme Disease From a Transfusion? It’s Unlikely, but Experts Are Wary.

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.
Published: July 18, 1989

LEAD: CAN Lyme disease be spread through blood transfusions as well as by ticks?

CAN Lyme disease be spread through blood transfusions as well as by ticks?

The answer is not clear and the matter is the subject of increasing concern, despite assurances from health officials that such transmission is highly unlikely. The officials admit that it is theoretically possible, but they note that there have been no documented cases of Lyme disease associated with transfusions.

The concern is raised because the disease is caused by a spirochete, or spiral bacterium. This spirochete is a cousin to the one that causes syphilis, which can be spread by transfusions.

Blood banks in the United States do not now test for evidence of the Lyme spirochete. While the banks will not accept blood from someone who feels ill at the time of the donation, they will accept donors who had Lyme disease in the past.

If the disease can be spread through transfusions, it may be more difficult to detect in blood recipients, delaying treatment. In interviews, several experts criticized health officials as taking an ostrich-like attitude toward the possible risk.

Without formal epidemiological and laboratory studies, the critics say the absence of Lyme disease cases associated with transfusions offers a false sense of security. They also said that the true incidence cannot be known because many transfusion recipients die from an underlying disease before Lyme has time to develop.

Of particular concern are recent reports from French and American researchers about the durability of the Lyme spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. At the New York Medical College in Valhalla, Dr. Gary Wormser’s team put B. burgdorferi in blood and kept it in a refrigerator under conditions mimicking the storage of blood. Six weeks later the researchers cultured the microbe from the blood samples. Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris have reported similar results.

”If they are concerned about passing syphilis in blood transfusions, then why aren’t they concerned about Lyme disease?” said Dr. Alan G. Barbour, an expert in spirochetes at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio.

Lyme disease is already a significant public health problem. Cases have been reported in at least 43 states and the disease has reached epidemic proportions in the Northeast, upper Midwest and in northern California. Lyme disease also occurs in Europe, which is the source of much of the blood transfused in the New York City area.

Symptoms of the disease are by now familiar to people in the hard-hit areas. Initially, most victims develop a rash with a bull’s-eye pattern where the tick bit. They may later suffer from flu-like symptoms, including a fever, headache and stiff neck. An infected person who does not get the proper treatment may eventually develop arthritic symptoms, with painful and stiff joints. In some cases, neurological problems and other complications develop.

Dr. S. Gerald Sandler, medical director of blood services for the American Red Cross in Washington, said the risk of spreading Lyme disease in transfusions was minimal. The Red Cross collects and processes most of the blood transfused in the United States and routinely checks an individual’s temperature to exclude anyone ill at the time of donation.

Although data are limited, Dr. Sandler said, it is thought that if the microbe can be spread in a transfusion, it can occur only in the initial stages of the disease. In cases where the spirochete has been isolated from the blood of patients, the individual has felt ill, making it unlikely that such a person would feel well enough to donate blood, Dr. Sandler said.

To reduce the risk from a Lyme-infected donor who may not feel ill, the Red Cross has instructed blood-bank workers to examine each donor for the Lyme rash.

The Lyme spirochete can be isolated from blood, but only with difficulty. That is one reason the most common tests are aimed at detecting the antibodies formed in response to the spirochete. But it may take three or more months after a tick bite for tests to detect such antibodies. Also, the tests are poorly standardized.

Using such methods to test each donor for evidence of Lyme Disease would create more problems than benefits, Dr. Sandler said.

No one knows whether someone with a positive test could spread the spirochete even years after having the disease, though the chances seem slim. Once someone has had the disease, the antibody tests generally remain positive for years.

Moreover, up to 3 percent of donors in some areas may test positive for Lyme disease.

”We would create an absolute epidemic of problems because there is no sure way to know whether individuals who had no symptoms but tested positive might need antibiotic treatment,” Dr. Sandler said.

Asking people who live in Lyme-infected areas to refrain from donating blood would be impractical and unjustified ”in the face of no measurable benefit,” Dr. Sandler said. The ticks are usually found in the brush and woods, but they have also been found on suburban lawns.

Imposing such restrictions could aggravate an already serious shortage of blood donors in the United States.

Another reason for concern is the difficulty of detecting Lyme disease cases after a transfusion.

The pattern of illness after such an infection could differ significantly from what follows a tick bite. For instance, the tell-tale rash may not develop. Instead, the microbe may travel directly to the joints or brain, and the first symptoms may be arthritis or meningitis.

Confusion could also result from the common practice of treating transfusion recipients with antibiotics for their underlying condition. While some antibiotics kill the Lyme spirochete, others are less effective.

The Lyme microbe is most likely to circulate in the blood during the first week after the onset of symptoms. But it is not known when, or if, the organism is present thereafter.

Some scientists, like Dr. Alan C. Steere of the Tufts Medical School in Boston, believe that the spirochete is present in blood for only a short phase of the disease. In 1975, when he was at Yale University, Dr. Steere headed the team credited with detecting Lyme disease.

But Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, who discovered the Lyme spirochete at the Public Health Service’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Mont., said, ”We know nothing about how long the spirochete is present in the bloodstream, and that problem has to be addressed.”

Because the low rate of detection of the Lyme spirochete in blood may simply reflect an inability to isolate the organism with current techniques, researchers need to improve the ways of growing the organisms in the laboratory, said Dr. Burgdorfer, who is now a scientist emeritus at the Montana laboratory.

Researchers are also seeking to adapt a new laboratory technique called polymerase chain reaction so that the sensitive technique can detect Lyme spirochetes when they are present in tiny numbers.

Critics are urging more research to follow the medical course of individuals who receive blood from donors who tested positive for Lyme disease. Such medical surveillance could determine the frequency with which healthy carriers spread the Lyme spirochete in transfusions.

In addition, critics say many of the health officials who publicly say there is little risk of transmitting Lyme disease through transfusions are being hypocritical.

At a recent meeting, Dr. Alan B. MacDonald asked a panel of health officials whether they would accept a transfusion from someone who had tested positive. Dr. MacDonald, who does Lyme research at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, L.I., said all of them answered no, although no one recommended discarding blood from such donors.

http://tinyurl.com/2ds54y

22-09-2006

What is it like to have a chronic illness? To have a disease which is very difficult to treat and to diagnose and which isn’t even recognised in many quarters of the medical profession. Welcome to the world of Chronic Lyme Disease. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
Lyme Disease is caused by the bite of a simple tick, injecting into the bloodstream the bacterium Borrelia and probably numerous other parasites. The incidence of those contracting the disease has been increasing dramatically in recent years and it’s known that swift treatment with antibiotics is enough to stop it in its tracks.
QUOTE
“You feel as if you’re in another compartment. You feel different. It’s a very odd feeling. You feel as though you’re not quite in the human race sometimes.”  Elizabeth Rice. Chronic Lyme Disease sufferer
What is causing the medical controversy is the course the disease takes if treatment is not so quick. Many say that heavy treatment at any stage is enough to kill the bacteria and that subsequent blood tests prove them right. The reality is far less clear cut.

QUOTE
“You almost go into a deep despair sometimes and I honestly thought to myself that I can’t go on anymore. Some of the symptoms are so horrendous you can’t explain it to people who haven’t suffered this illness. They don’t understand you. You look fine, they say. In fact, you feel dreadful. Your head is bursting. You can’t think straight. Your bones and muscles are aching; you’ve got pins and needles and numbness. It’s just horrendous. It really is.” Cecylia Malenchek
Cecylia Malanchek has had the disease for 13 years and as with many sufferers of the chronic condition she was not immediately diagnosed. It has led to many years of pain and mental anguish. Her experience with doctors hasn’t helped. Her GP told her it was all in her head, offered no treatment and asked her how she got on with her parents. The experience seems to be a common one.

QUOTE
“I was offered anti-depressants and that was just the end for me. I said there’s no way I’m taking them until someone tells me for definite, someone that knows about the disease, that I haven’t got it. Then I’ll take the anti-depressants but not until then.”  Ann Maher
The problem with the disease is that it’s a relatively new parasite on the scene. The bacterium that causes it was only discovered 30 years ago and so there’s still a great deal to be revealed about how it works and how effective treatment is. What is known is that it’s a very tough and resistant bacterium and that it’s recently been classified as a potential bio-terror agent by the US government because of its incredible abilities to escape our attempts to kill it.

Dr Andrew Wright is an authority on Lyme Disease and he says that the high wall that patients are facing is a phenomenon that goes back many years.

“That’s the history of medicine. You look back at the illnesses called psychological, tuberculosis, epilepsy, schizophrenia, all thought to be psychological until the cause was found and I’m sure that in the not too distant future the same will be seen in illnesses like chronic Lyme. Once we understand things they become respectable but in medicine we do this, we have this defence mechanism whereby, if we can’t explain something one way of dealing with it is to make the patient the problem. It’s their problem then and not ours. And that gives us an easy way out.”

This is a view shared by one of the world’s leading authorities on Lyme Disease Professor Sam Donta, who’s treated thousands of cases from his base in the North-East United States where the disease was first discovered.

“The physician has been educated to think about Lyme in very crisp, finite terms. And they’ve been taught that we don’t know what it is but that it’s not Lyme. So the patient is then left dangling. Probably having Lyme or something like it that we haven’t discovered yet and getting emotional support up to a point or the usual which is ‘this is stress, you’re depressed, take an anti-anxiety pill, see a psychiatrist and goodbye’. I tell the patient sometimes that if you wanted to make this up you could, but then you’re making up the same story that hundreds and thousands of patients are also making up.”

There are still major and sometimes bruising fights taking place within the medical profession about the nature of the disease. Does Chronic Lyme Disease exist or not? All the evidence suggests it does but as the arguments continue one thing remains the same - the sufferers are left dangling, knowing that something dramatic and debilitating has happened to their health but often unable to get the support and help needed to overcome it.

But that’s the history of medicine!

Click here to listen to ‘An ode to health and ignorance’ on Real Player: http://tinyurl.com/2xutyn

Radio Netherlands: http://tinyurl.com/pqnb2
 

This is another tragic example of how devastating Borreliosis / Lyme disease can be. For some, it is hard enough to battle with the disease itself, but when they have to battle with the doctors that are supposed to make things easier, it can all become too much to live with.

Whatever his own reasons were, our deepest sympathies are with Professor Alasdair Crockett’s family and friends.
Daily Mail - 18th September 2006

One of the country’s top experts on modern life may have killed himself after catching a rare brain disease from a tiny insect bite.

University professor Alasdair Crockett was found dead in woods near his home on Saturday 48 hours after he was reported missing.

His distraught widow has told police the the leading academic was suffering from anxiety after he was bitten by a wood tick that carries the potentially-deadly Lyme Disease.

The illness can usually be treated and cleared up with anti-biotics but in extremely rare cases if it is not caught and treated early it attacks the nervous system leading to dementia.

The land, air and sea search for Dr Crockett, 38, was called off when police officers combing countryside around the family’s home in Brightlingsea, Essex found a body in creekside woods a mile away.

A former research fellow at Nuffield College Dr Crockett took up a senior part-time post last year with a prestigious think tank that monitors life in modern Britain.

As one of the chief officers with the Institute for Social and Economic Research Dr Crockett and his colleagues based at Essex University collect data on people’s changing lives.

Their findings are considered so important they are often used in determining government policy.

Cambridge-educated Dr Crockett, who held a Masters Philosophy degree, specialised in the sociology of religion and 19th century economic history.

But his life changed as he was forced to come to terms with the more serious long-term effects of Lyme Disease, an illness initially caused by an insect bite and often picked up by walkers and ramblers.

If treatment is not given early enough the disease can lead to severe mental illness such as schizophrenia.

A spokesman for Essex police said that Dr Crockett had been exhibiting symptoms of extreme anxiety which is among the effects of the disease in its advanced stages.

On Saturday after a widespread search involving a police helicopter, divers and searchers on the ground, Dr Crockett’s body matching his description was found in Thicks Wood a 15-minute walk from near the family’s home in the popular yachting village.

The hunt for the missing professor had involved a sweep of countryside around the town and divers were preparing to explore rivers and sandpits in the area.

A description of Dr Crockett - 6ft tall, slim with collar-length dark hair and wearing rectangular glasses - was also circulated to ports and airports.

But police said when he vanished he had taken nothing with him, such as his wallet, and was wearing only a T-shirt, trousers and shoes.

Mrs Crockett and the couple’s two young children are currently being comforted by family and friends.

A family liaison officer said: “Understandably Mrs Crockett is devastated by the news and totally distraught, as are his family and close friends.

“She has asked that people respect her privacy as she comes to terms with the death of her husband.”

An inquest will be held but a police spokesman said yesterday that foul play was not suspected and they were not looking for anyone else in connection with Dr Crockett’s death.

Lyme Disease is caused by a single bite of a spider-like wood tick found in forests and on moorland all over the country, often where there are deer.

The initial symptoms of a rash, drowsiness and muscle pains can normally be treated successfully with anti-biotics.

But in extremely rare cases it can develop and become a chronic illness which slowly destroys the nervous system. It leads to loss of hearing, numbness and can eventually cause serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia

http://tinyurl.com/253q5c

Celia Haddon has published in her pet advice column a very brief warning. This is rather short but very welcome nonetheless:

“Be aware when walking dogs that both you and your dog may suffer from ticks that carry disease. The castor bean tick, “Ixodes ricinus”, is most common in woody areas in the UK, although it’s also found in grassland. Never remove ticks ticks from a dog by hand. Tick-born (sic) disease, such as Lyme disease, can make dogs and humans very ill. CC, BADA-UK

“This warning comes from the charity Borreliosis and Associated Diseases Awareness UK. For details of how to protect yourself, see www.bada-uk.org, or send an A5 stamped envelope to BADA-UK, PO Box 70, North Walsham, NR28 0WX.
A new danger comes from the brown dog tick Rhipicephalus sanguineus, which has now arrived in the UK from the Continent. This tick can spead babesia, which has malaria type symptoms, in humans”

SENEGAL: Lyme disease: the forgotten scourge of West Africa

INDIA KAF-NGOUNE, 23 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - In the small village of Sindia, 70 km from Dakar, the landscape is dotted with the burrows of rodents. They may not be easy to spot, but even more difficult to see are the swarms of ticks that also make their home there and whose bite poses a serious health threat to the local population.

These ticks can carry Lyme disease, a potentially life-threatening sickness in humans that is becoming more common throughout West Africa.

Lyme disease is a bacterial sickness, said George Diatta, a zoologist at the Institute for Research and Development (IRD) in Dakar. It is transmitted through the bite of Ornithodoros sonrai, a mole tick.

The tick bite is usually painless, and often goes unnoticed, but its consequences can be devastating. Within seven days of infection, a person can experience a high fever that reoccurs every few weeks over a period of three months. Even more troubling, Lyme disease can trigger encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that can be fatal.

One of the problems for controlling and treating Lyme disease is that it is difficult to diagnose. Its symptoms resemble those of malaria, and in rural areas, where Lyme disease is more common, resources to perform tests are mostly unavailable. When it remains undetected, symptoms can escalate and lead to death.

“It is difficult to pinpoint Lyme disease, said Diatta. A test needs to be done when the patient shows a spike in fever. But the disease being difficult to spot in the blood, you need a very experienced lab technician to detect it.

From 1990 to 2003, researchers with the IRD studying malaria in the village of Dielmo in the Sine Saloum region of Senegal, took advantage of the resources available to them to also look into the prevalence of Lyme disease.

The results of their 14-year study showed that between 4 and 25 percent of the population presented cases of the tick fever, with an average rate of incidence of 11 percent per year. Other studies conducted in rural parts of Senegal, Mali and Mauritania confirmed these results.

It’s a significant rate of incidence for a sickness that affects all age groups, said Diatta. Only malaria and the flu are as frequent, and we estimate that, like other endemic sicknesses, Lyme disease is a serious public health problem.

The propagation of this bacterial infection in West Africa is due in large part to increasingly longer periods of drought. This has caused ticks to spread into areas outside of the Sahel region and into rural zones that receive less than 750 mm of rain per year.

In Senegal, ticks are present in two-thirds of the country, reaching as far south as the border with The Gambia.

A forgotten killer

Believing Lyme disease was eradicated in the 1950s, it quickly fell off the radar of health professionals and out of the public consciousness, making it virtually unknown to local populations today, explained Diatta.

The inhabitants of Sindia undoubtedly suffer from this lack of information.

I’d never heard of this sickness,” said Hassan Ndione, a local villager, who expressed concern when told about Lyme disease. I have rats and mice in my house, so I would imagine that there are ticks that could be biting us.

According to Diatta, there is no viable way to eliminate the ticks without also destroying the rodent population, which would create an imbalance in the region’s ecosystem. He feels that the only way to contain the spread of the disease is to inform healthcare workers and the public about its existence and symptoms.

“What is essential is that health officials are vigilant about diagnosis and treatment. And to achieve that, universities and medical schools need to teach students about Lyme disease, to make them understand that when a high fever presents itself for more than three days, it is not malaria, but Lyme disease,” said Diatta.

“Recurrent malarias are often attributed to a resistance to anti-malarial medications, whereas these are cases of Lyme disease that can be easily treated with antibiotics costing no more than 2000 CFA (US $4), he said.

As for research, he said more needs to be done as Lyme disease in West Africa is fatal and its real incidence remains unknown. Until then, Diatta and his fellow researchers at IRD say they continue their work with the hope that government officials and international organisations will take note and mobilise aid to help deal with this public health problem.

http://tinyurl.com/ysbbjf

If only our own doctors shared the same concerns!

Letter: Doctor: Beware of Lyme disease

TO THE EDITOR:

I am the senior pediatrician at Westwood-Mansfield Pediatric Associates with almost 20 years of experience, and I have seen more Lyme disease in this practice in the last 18 to 20 months than in my prior 18 years combined.

I have seen three cases of Lyme meningitis, six cases of Lyme arthritis and two cases of facial Bell’s palsies during this time. This does not include all the classic rashes. Recently I saw three cases of Lyme rash in one day!

It is time for the boards of health, the state Department of Public Health and state Fish and Game Commission to get together and educate the public about this epidemic, even if we doctors have been remiss in reporting cases.

Also, the deer population seems to be either growing or construction is driving them into yards for food. This is especially so in Medfield, Dover, Sharon, Norfolk and Mansfield. Also included are parts of Westwood, Walpole and Needham. Deer can be given medication in corn laced with an antiparasitic medicine called Ivermectin. I recommend parents:

1. Check their children every day for the very tiny tick.

2. Buzz cuts for boys and tight ponytails for girls. I suspect progressive Lyme disease is because we miss the bite and early rash in the scalp.

3. 25 to 30 percent DEET containing spray daily - the benefits outweigh the risk

4. Consider spraying your yards - talk to a landscaper.

5. Consider fencing your yard.

The risk in my practice over a two-year period of contracting Lyme disease is at least 1:150-1:200. The risk of symptomatic West Nile Virus is 1:350,000.

Where are our public health priorities? I heard from a parent in one town that six of her child’s friends had Lyme disease. I suspect the risk is greater than even what I think.

Parents take action! Call your board of health, Fish and Game Commission, Department of Public Health and your legislators.

Dr. Lester Hartman
Westwood-Mansfield Pediatric Associates P.C.
High Street

http://tinyurl.com/28qsf6

The CLIO Project
Climate Change and the European Countryside: Impacts on Land management and Response Strategies
Authors: Dr David Viner, Michael Sayer, Maria Calvo Uyarra and Nikki Hodgson

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/link/new_link/clio/CLIO_Main.html
Introduction and Policy Recommendations

Biodiversity, pests and diseases
There is likely to be a continuing increase in invertebrate pests (e.g. ticks) and resultant tick borne diseases (e.g., Lymes disease) with implications for livestock health. Pests affecting trees, such as the Spruce Bark Beetle (Ips typographus), Black Arches or Nun moth (Lymantria monacha), Pine Sawfly (Neodiprion sertifer), Tortrix viridana, Catocala nymphaea and others, (Parry, 2000 and Wittman and Bayliss, 2000) are expected to cause increasing damage. European and Scandinavian forest estates (e.g., Invercauld) are likely to be particularly affected, but also estates in the north of the British Isles in the case of the sheep (deer) tick (Ixodes ricinus), which transmits the louping ill virus (Invercauld).
Livestock management
Livestock management is likely to require greater emphasis on prevention of both heat stress, typically where animals are kept indoors, and disease, for example vaccination against sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus), (Newborn, 2003). This may have future relevance for grouse populations, (Invercauld). It would seem that vaccination of domestic livestock may become increasingly important with globalisation, while the vaccination of wild populations may also be appropriate, something that has already been successful in controlling the spread of rabies by foxes (Vulpes vulpes) on the continent, and may be applicable with tuberculosis in the European Badger (Meles meles).

Herein , we submit a case study which offers a new cognitive model for Alzheimer’s disease. It is unknown how many persons might fit into this model, but if even one person could potentially benefit, we believe that it is in the public interest to discuss the case of Mr Paul Christensen.

Paul was a career firefighter and like so many men and women who serve us as firefighters, Paul risked his life to save the lives of others.

In his 65th year he developed a neurologic illness, which was recalcitrant to treatment. He died. An autopsy was completed at his family’s request.
The conventional method for detection of Plaques is the silver stain which produces a rounded black staining image in autopsy brain. Severity of dementia correlates with the “density” of Plaques ..ie plaque number per unit area of the brain. Note that the plaques are always rounded, but the size diameter of the plaques varies from small to large…. just like the cysts of Bb are always round in contour, but vary in size from small to large.
Alzheimer’s disease was confirmed by rigorous studies, expertly completed at the School of Medicine, Stony Brook New York.

A lingering question remained unanswered after the final version of the Autopsy report was codified. Was there any possible relationship between the Alzheimer’s disease, and Paul’s long term struggle with Lyme disease?

Multiple spinal fluid studies during his lifetime showed strongly positive results at the School of Medicine at Stony Brook. But the very best efforts of the Neuropathologist who personally examined Paul’s brain tissues under the microscope yielded no evidence of the telltale corkscrew profiles which textbooks tell us are the “signature” of the Lyme spirochete in tissues.

A prospective research study at St Catherine of Siena Medical Center, supported by the Turn the Corner Foundation of New York City provided some new tools to attempt to answer the question of links between Alzheimer’s disease, and spirochetal infection. The new tools, of the Turn the Corner research are not improved recipes for the traditional silver staining of bugs in tissue.

The new methods are DNA probes with Fluorescent labels of Borrelia burgdorferi specific DNA. These tools for detection of the spirochetal microbe are more specific and offer a level of precision equal to the culture of the spirochetal pathogen from liquid cultures of diseased tissues, in the great tradition of Dr. Robert Koch.

Dr. Koch’s 4 points of “proof” that a microbe is the actual cause of a disease are :

1. Regular identification of the “bug” in diseased tissues,
2. Cultivation of the “bug” and isolation of the “bug” in pure cultures from diseased tissues,
3. Recapitulation of the disease when the “bug” is injected into healthy tissues,
4. Repeat isolation of the “bug” from the experimental animal model in step 3.
Green Fluorescence images are from the DNA probe for Borrelia FlaB DNA showing positive signals in the Alzheimer plaques

In Paul’s case, the DNA Probes applied to autopsy brain tissue sections showed a strong positive beacon of light, a signal which was not haphazardly present, but which was present in the areas of the diseased brain tissue which are emblematic of Alzheimer’s .

The Spirochete specific DNA probes showed Rounded “glow in the dark” fluorescence” in the rounded Alzheimer’s plaques, with no probe signals seen in the uninjured brain tissues.

This single case study, of Alzheimer’s disease, at Autopsy offers a potential new paradigm for the redefinition of a percentage of all Alzheimer’s as the group with chronic spirochetal infection as its root cause.

In the great tradition of Dr Hideyo Noguchi, who in 1913, proved that the dementia of Late syphilis, is actually caused by spirochetes in autopsy brain tissue, this 21st century application of Noguchi’s genius returns to the clinical arena in the service of patients who , because of their illness cannot judge the cause of their cognitive deterioration.

Let us hope that by “connecting the dots” in one well studied case, that others may be better served by what the Autopsy has shown us.

Respectfully submitted,

Dorothy Christensen Alan B. MacDonald c/o MacDonald 1 Franciscan Lane Smithtown, New York, 11787

http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=13894

Reports have indicated an increase in the number of cases of louping-ill, a virus that is transmitted by blood sucking parasites in the farm animas.

The main areas that are affected have been reported to be around the Devon and Lancashire. Reports have indicated that up to 2,000 people are affected in the recent times with Lyme disease in the UK each year, which is caused by a bacterium that is transmitted to humans through the bites of infected ticks.

Health experts are now trying to investigate as to whether climatic change and a rising population in deer, which are known to host ticks, could be to the reason for the rise. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have announced to have carried out a survey in 136 locations.

Professor Sarah Randolph, from the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, and a leading expert on the subject, who has been studying the results, said, “Evidence does seem to indicate an increase in tick numbers. Everybody seems to be concerned with an increase in incidents of certain diseases. Then there’s also the very important issue of tick’s hosts, which are mostly deer in the UK, and also sheep and cattle. Deer have spread their distribution, and this is likely to increase the real abundance of ticks.”

Health experts have warned the campers and walkers on the possibility of them being exposed to the risk of Lyme disease, which can bring on arthritis, nerve and heart problems. They explained that one of the initial symptoms, would be a very characteristic bulls eye shaped rash. They explained that if diagnosed early then the disease could be treated with antibiotics.

Source-Medindia
VIK

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