All Posts Tagged With: "babesiosis"

Linda’s comment:  Human babesiosis in the United States is primarily attributable to infection with the intraerythrocytic protozoan parasite, Babesia microti.

CONCLUSIONS: Recipients of components from B. microti-positive donors
were infected via transfusion, with index donations from parasitemic
donors posing the greatest transmission risk. This report of B. microti
transmission detected through LB, coupled with ongoing TTB cases,
indicates that interventions are needed to reduce transmission of B.
microti to US blood recipients.

Linda’s comments:  What is it going to take to make our Dept. of Health do something about this problem.  Transplant patients are also becoming infected with Lyme and company, because of the lack of education with this growing problem….

Link: http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=21233506&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks

Excerpt:

Summary: Babesia spp. are intraerythrocytic protozoan parasites of animals
and humans that cause babesiosis, a zoonotic disease transmitted primarily
by tick vectors. 

Link: http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=21106294&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks

Excerpt:

Tick-borne diseases are a constraint to livestock production in many
developing countries as they cause high morbidity and mortality, which
results in decreased production of meat, milk and other livestock
by-products. The most important tick-borne diseases of livestock in
sub-Saharan Africa are East Coast fever (caused by Theileria parva),
babesiosis (caused by Babesia bigemina and B.
bovis), anaplasmosis (caused by Anaplasma marginale) and heartwater (caused
by Ehrlichia ruminantium). Despite their economic importance, information on
the epidemiology of these diseases in many countries, including Zambia, is
often inadequate, making rational disease control strategies difficult to
implement.
In this study 18S and 16S rRNA gene PCR assays were used for a comprehensive
epidemiological analysis of tick-borne disease of cattle in three provinces
of Zambia (Lusaka, Central and Eastern). All the disease pathogens under
study (T.
parva, T. mutans, T. taurotragi, B. bovis, B. bigemina, Anaplasma spp and E.
ruminantium) were prevalent in each of the provinces surveyed. However,
variation was observed in prevalence between regions and seasons. There was
no association between live vaccination against East Coast fever and being
PCR positive for T. parva. A number of risk factors were shown to be
associated with
(a) the occurrence of tick-borne pathogens in cattle and (b) cattle tick
burdens in the wet season. A negative association was observed between the
number of co-infecting pathogens and the erythrocyte packed cell volume
(PCV) of carrier cattle. Crown Copyright (c) 2010. Published by Elsevier
B.V. All rights reserved

Link: http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=20971437&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks

Excerpt:

Millions of travelers visit the United States every year during
warm months when risk of vector-borne disease is highest. The
epidemiology and geographic distribution of the principal
vector-borne diseases in the United States are reviewed and
recommendations for visitors to reduce their risk of disease are
described. Travel advice should focus on preventing Lyme disease,
anaplasmosis and babesiosis in the northeast and north central
States, West Nile virus disease in western plains States, and
Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia in the southeast;
other diseases and itineraries requiring particular attention are
described. All travelers to the United States should be advised
to practice personal protection against arthropod bites,
including appropriate use of insect repellents, especially when
visiting rural and suburban areas during the warm months.
Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Full article: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/339/3/160

Excerpt:

Background Babesiosis, a zoonosis caused by the protozoan Babesia microti, is usually not treated when the symptoms are mild, because the parasitemia appears to be transient. However, the microscopical methods used to diagnose this infection are insensitive, and few infected people have been followed longitudinally. We compared the duration of parasitemia in people who had received specific antibabesial therapy with that in silently infected people who had not received specific therapy.

Methods Forty-six babesia-infected subjects were identified from 1991 through 1996 in a prospective, community-based study designed to detect episodes of illness and of seroconversion among the residents of southeastern Connecticut and Block Island, Rhode Island. Subjects with acute babesial illness were monitored every 3 months for up to 27 months by means of thin blood smears, Bab. microti polymerase-chain-reaction assays, serologic tests, and questionnaires

Excerpt:

Connie Bennett

Special to AOL News

(May 28) — We’re in the midst of a terrifying epidemic, although you wouldn’t know it to talk to most doctors and health specialists.

The disease is growing at a rate faster than AIDS. From 2006 to 2008 alone, the number of cases jumped a whopping 77 percent. In 2008 alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed 28,921 “confirmed” and 6,277 “probable” cases of the disease, but there could be as many as 420,000 because of underreporting.

Prominent victims include Parker Posey, Richard Gere, President George W. Bush, Alice Walker and Christie Brinkley.

If any other disease had stricken so many people, the medical community would be scurrying for knowledge, scrambling for cures or rushing to warn patients (think swine flu).

But that’s not the case with Lyme disease — a disease carried by ticks.

Instead, ill-informed doctors are often flummoxed when patients complain of fatigue, headaches, fever or chills, muscle or joint pain, mental confusion, swollen lymph nodes and neurological symptoms. It’s an appalling display of indifference.

As Lyme Disease Awareness Month comes to a close and Memorial Day travelers flock to grassy, tick-infested holiday spots across America, vacationers and physicians alike need to be on the alert for freckle-sized menaces that are responsible for the fastest-growing, most misdiagnosed infectious disease in the country. The CDC has a map that shows where the ticks are most prevalent.

For my part, I was lucky because my smart nutritionist friend, JJ Virgin, immediately grew suspicious when, almost overnight, I became an exhausted, headache-ridden, nightmare-plagued, memory-challenged zombie suffering from vertigo, sleeping problems, swollen glands, achy eyes, sensitivity to light and noise, fever, chills and a sore neck.

The use of new, highly sensitive diagnostic methods has revealed persistent
infections to be a common feature of different tick-borne diseases, such as
babesiosis, anaplasmosis and heartwater. Antigenic variation can contribute to
disease persistence through the continual elaboration of new surface structures,
and we know in several instances how this is achieved. Continued

Linda’s comment:  The FIGHT program is a perfect example of how you can fight Lyme disease.  As Dr Patricia Gerbarg, MD has found out.  She has not experienced the FIGHT program to my knowledge, but the protocols she mentioned are all part of the FIGHT program.  It is a must that we reduce the total body burden of toxins and pathogens to fight the Lyme critters.  Lyme loves heavy metals.  We are slammed every time we walk out our front doors with 500 to 600 environmental toxins.  It is a daily battle, but I found the FIGHT program made this all very easy.  I only wish I had  the knowledge of the FIGHT program with the first Lyme infection.

I have never taken any antibiotics and don’t intend to, but I focused on the lifelong daily detox program FIGHT and cleaned up my lifestyle, home and diet.  I got rid of all the GMO foods, gluten, sugar, caffeine, alcohol and my body shakes if I pass a fast-food restaurant….the smell turns my stomach.  Once you clean  up your diet and clean up your homestead, you begin to feel better….Lifestyle is probably one of the hardest things I have ever done….Yes, I cheat, but at least now I have learned to cheat. and can neutralize a toxic food if I eat it.  Once you begin to feel better it makes the journey of cleaning up much easier. Just give the FIGHT program 90 days and you too will feel the difference.

Regards, Linda Continued

Clinical practice guidelines are increasing in number. Unfortunately,
when scientific evidence is uncertain, limited, or evolving, as is often
the case, conflict often arises between guideline committees and
practicing physicians, who bear the direct responsibility for the care of
individual patients. The 2006 Infectious Diseases Society of America
guidelines for Lyme disease, which have limited scientific support,
could, if implemented, limit the clinical discretion of treating physicians
and the treatment options available to patients

Introduction

Clinical practice guidelines are now ubiquitous throughout the
United States. The National Guidelines Clearing House, under the
category “diseases,” currently lists 2,126 separate guidelines on its
web site. Clinical guidelines are intended to assist physicians in
patient care by clearly communicating the results of the guideline
committees’ evaluation of available therapeutic options. However,
the processes by which individual guidelines are constructed may be
less clear, leading to disagreements between the issuing committee
and the physicians who treat patients-physicians who may well be
as experienced and knowledgeable as the guideline committee. Continued

A fatal case of transfusion-transmitted babesiosis in the State of Delaware
Yong Zhao, Kenneth R. Love, Scott W. Hall, and Frank V. Beardell

Background: Most cases of human babesiosis in North America are caused
by Babesia microti, which is endemic in the northeastern and upper
midwestern United States. Although the disease is usually transmitted by
a tick bite, there has been an increase in the number of
transfusion-transmitted cases reported. We describe a fatal case of
transfusion-transmitted babesiosis in a nonendemic state, Delaware. Continued