Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions.
Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people have any grasp of the risk of Lyme because the high risk zones are, by and large, not well known, and they don't always correlate that well with the basic risk of acquiring a tick.
I think most specialists in the UK think this is likely to lead to a pretty big increase to infections before people learn, so maybe this sort of tool will help offset that.
I walk a lot in an area with some wild deer and boar, and I would love to have one of these in my cupboard as a precaution. Would be great to see them in supermarkets in high risk areas, too.
I have a friend who got a tick bite on holiday in America many years ago. Turns out they got Lyme disease but no doctors in the UK were experienced with it so they dealt with years of misdiagnosis. I really hope any education effort can get out ahead of that.
Yeah. I think we simply did not see it enough and to be honest far too few doctors ask the "have you travelled" question about unusual disease. It is better now, but I think the "could it be?" thought doesn't occur because the incidence has been low.
There is a more severe risk around rabies. We basically do not have it in the UK or Ireland; it has been eliminated for over a century except a tiny incidence of a virus in the same family in bats. But because we have essentially eradicated it, doctors do not often think to ask about it, even in people who have travelled, which led to someone suffering awfully last year.
And since a dog bite or even a fox bite in the UK or Ireland carries literally zero risk of rabies, those who are bitten or scratched while travelling abroad do not have it uppermost in their mind.
As a parent in the US northeast who likes taking their kids camping and hiking, ticks have been an ongoing conversation this year. I think this is going to sell well.
Absolutely yes, because the most severe risks are associated with the bacteria reaching the heart and into the nervous system, which is a relatively slow process. There's a window of a couple of weeks.
If you could know as soon as you were bitten whether there was any risk of infection at all, that would be very valuable information.
I think it's only a one in ten chance that an infected tick would transmit the infection, anyway. But you would know whether you needed to even book an appointment.
Yes, it's treatable with antibiotics and people that are treated get less sick. As stated in the article, prophylactic treatment with Doxycycline is the standard of care. Testing the tick is an alternative to that rather than something that should be expected to increase treatment...
The article also mentions that symptoms sometimes persist after treatment with antibiotics.
Used to be a big Event Of The Year when my grandpa found one after spending all day out in their 'garden' (a few acres bordering deep woods). I remember being maybe 11 when he found one, let me try and figure out how to crush it, I couldn't. He showed me how to use the butt of a butterknife and leverage to get the fuckers
I don't live anywhere near a proper forest and we've had several close calls this year, I caught one crawling across my scalp when I was getting into bed last month. Went and got tested just to be safe
I know feeding crows is really fun, but please don't. It's very important that they get hungry enough to eat mice sometimes. Same goes for deer, the past couple of years I've had them walk _towards_ me and my dog instead of bolting, presumably because someone is feeding them (by hand, not garden raiding)
All those people who claimed to get autoimmune problems after the vaccine, must have been people who went to quite a bit of trouble to get the vaccine in the first place, so I'm not so sure it can all be written off as health panic.
A problem with vaccines and the public is that when you perform any intervention on many many people, some will happen to (randomly) suffer some issue. To them, it is obviously causation, regardless of what the math (that they do t understand) says.
Here in the UK, Lyme traditionally been a marginal problem (tick bites aren't) but we now have such rapid climate change, along with rapidly increasing wild deer and boar populations, that some areas in the UK are becoming risk zones on more or less the same level of risk as some US regions.
Alas the difference here is that education has not caught up to the USA: very few people have any grasp of the risk of Lyme because the high risk zones are, by and large, not well known, and they don't always correlate that well with the basic risk of acquiring a tick.
I think most specialists in the UK think this is likely to lead to a pretty big increase to infections before people learn, so maybe this sort of tool will help offset that.
I walk a lot in an area with some wild deer and boar, and I would love to have one of these in my cupboard as a precaution. Would be great to see them in supermarkets in high risk areas, too.
There is a more severe risk around rabies. We basically do not have it in the UK or Ireland; it has been eliminated for over a century except a tiny incidence of a virus in the same family in bats. But because we have essentially eradicated it, doctors do not often think to ask about it, even in people who have travelled, which led to someone suffering awfully last year.
And since a dog bite or even a fox bite in the UK or Ireland carries literally zero risk of rabies, those who are bitten or scratched while travelling abroad do not have it uppermost in their mind.
Or actually let's just eradicate all ticks.
If you could know as soon as you were bitten whether there was any risk of infection at all, that would be very valuable information.
I think it's only a one in ten chance that an infected tick would transmit the infection, anyway. But you would know whether you needed to even book an appointment.
The article also mentions that symptoms sometimes persist after treatment with antibiotics.
Could be a very big deal if it could be made properly inexpensive. COVID tests were, after all.
Used to be a big Event Of The Year when my grandpa found one after spending all day out in their 'garden' (a few acres bordering deep woods). I remember being maybe 11 when he found one, let me try and figure out how to crush it, I couldn't. He showed me how to use the butt of a butterknife and leverage to get the fuckers
I don't live anywhere near a proper forest and we've had several close calls this year, I caught one crawling across my scalp when I was getting into bed last month. Went and got tested just to be safe
I know feeding crows is really fun, but please don't. It's very important that they get hungry enough to eat mice sometimes. Same goes for deer, the past couple of years I've had them walk _towards_ me and my dog instead of bolting, presumably because someone is feeding them (by hand, not garden raiding)
(Also, I have the same question about the poison ivy immunotherapy pills that were common in the US before the FDA.)
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/pfizer-valneva-lyme-vaccine-st...