Posted on 09/20/2011 8:51:39 PM PDT by neverdem
A new tick-borne disease that may be stealthily infecting some Americans has been discovered by Yale researchers working with Russian scientists.
The disease is caused by a spirochete bacterium called Borrelia miyamotoi, which is distantly related to Borrelia burgdorferi, the spirochete that causes Lyme disease.
B. miyamotoi has been found — albeit relatively rarely — in the same deer tick species that transmit Lyme, and the Yale researchers estimate that perhaps 3,000 Americans a year pick it up from tick bites, compared with about 25,000 who get Lyme disease.
But there is no diagnostic test for it in this country, so it is not yet known whether it has actually made any Americans sick.
The same short course of antibiotics that normally cures Lyme also seems to cure it.
In Russia, where a team in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg developed a test that can distinguish miyamotoi from other tick-borne spirochetes, it caused higher fevers than Lyme disease typically does. In about 10 percent of cases, the fevers repeatedly disappear and return after a week or two.
The study by the two teams is to be published soon in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Since the disease was only recently discovered, it is unknown whether it does serious long-term damage, as untreated Lyme disease can.
The Yale medical school researchers — Durland Fish, an entomologist, and Dr. Peter J. Krause, an epidemiologist — have recently won a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the symptoms and develop a rapid diagnostic kit.
Dr. Fish found B. miyamotoi in American ticks 10 years ago, but was repeatedly refused a study grant until the Russians proved it caused illness. “It’s been like pulling teeth,” he said. “Go ask the N.I.H. why.”
The discovery will no doubt add to the controversy...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
spirochete ping
from the paper:
Clinical manifestations included fever, headache, chills, fatigue, vomiting, and myalgia.
A single course of ceftriaxone or doxycycline seemed to clear B. miyamotoi infection. Although effective therapy is available, appropriate diagnosis and therapy are complicated by lack of awareness of B. miyamotoi as a human pathogen, the nonspecific symptoms of infection, and the absence of standardized and widely available assays.
B. miyamotoi infection may have negative health consequences, including relapsing disease that may last for months and may not respond to inappropriate antimicrobial drug therapy.
Thanks... Another human infection to chalk up to these very active bacteria. They are a very nasty group of animals.
ping again
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