All Posts Tagged With: "Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto"

Linda’s comment:  Where will it all end…..Lyme has become a world-wide epidemic, yet the ISDA boys/girls say there is not such thing as chronic Lyme!!  I don’t know where they went to medical school but they need to ask for a refund from their medical school.  Many of the IDSA members have written published studies on Lyme and the co-infections, yet they deny treatment to suffering people….

Link: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/bjmbr/v40n4/6497.pdf 

Excerpt:

An emerging clinical entity that reproduces clinical manifestations
similar to those observed in Lyme disease (LD) has been recently
under discussion in Brazil. Due to etiological and laboratory particularities
it is named LD-like syndrome or LD imitator syndrome. The
condition is considered to be a zoonosis transmitted by ticks of the
genus Amblyomma, possibly caused by interaction of multiple fastidious
microorganisms originating a protean clinical picture, including
neurological, osteoarticular and erythema migrans-like lesions. 

Linda’s comments:  Believe it or not, dogs and cats get better treatment for Lyme disease than humans.

Link: http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&id=20933139&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks

Excerpt:

Lyme borreliosis (LB), synonymous with the often-used term Lyme
disease, is an infectious disease caused by the spirochetal
bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. LB is the most frequent
vector-borne disease in humans in the Northern Hemisphere.
In animals, clinically apparent disease is found primarily in
dogs. Severe polyarthritis, fever and lameness in dogs are
reported from the main endemic areas of North America: the New
England States, and eastern parts of the United States; several
cases of LB are also seen in California and the Midwest. Because
of the difficulties in finding sufficient indicative clinical
signs, additional information (detailed case history, laboratory
testing for antibodies) is especially important to make the
clinical diagnosis of Lyme borreliosis. This article reviews the
etiology, diagnosis, therapy, and prevention of LB.
Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt:

Lyme neuroborreliosis—characterized as chronic, necrosuppurative to nonsuppurative, perivascular to diffuse meningoradiculoneuritis—was diagnosed in 2 horses with progressive neurologic disease. In 1 horse, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto was identified by polymerase chain reaction amplification of B burgdorferi sensu stricto–specific gene targets (ospA, ospC, flaB, dbpA, arp). Highest spirochetal burdens were in tissues with inflammation, including spinal cord, muscle, and joint capsule. Sequence analysis ofospA, ospC, and flaB revealed 99.9% sequence identity to the respective genes in B burgdorferi strain 297, an isolate from a human case of neuroborreliosis. In both horses, spirochetes were visualized in affected tissues with Steiner silver impregnation and by immunohistochemistry, predominantly within the dense collagenous tissue of the dura mater and leptomeninges.

Excerpt:

In the far-western United States, the nymphal stage of the
western black-legged tick, Ixodes pacificus, has been implicated
as the primary vector to humans of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu
stricto (hereinafter referred to as B. burgdorferi), the
causative agent of Lyme borreliosis in North America. In the
present study, we sought to determine if infection prevalence
with B. burgdorferi in I.
pacificus nymphs and the density of infected nymphs differ
between dense-woodland types within Mendocino County, California,
and to develop and evaluate a spatially-explicit model for
density of infected nymphs in dense woodlands within this
high-incidence area for Lyme borreliosis. In total, 4.9%
(264) of 5431 I. pacificus nymphs tested for the presence of B.
burgdorferi were infected. Among the 78 sampling sites, infection
prevalence ranged from 0 to 22% and density of infected nymphs
from 0 to 2.04 per 100 m(2). Infection prevalence was highest in
woodlands dominated by hardwoods (6.2%) and lowest for redwood
(1.9%) and coastal pine (0%). Density of infected nymphs also was
higher in hardwood-dominated woodlands than in conifer-dominated
ones that included redwood or pine. Our spatial risk model, which
yielded an overall accuracy of 85%, indicated that warmer areas
with less variation between maximum and minimum monthly water
vapor in the air were more likely to include woodlands with
elevated acarological risk of exposure to infected nymphs. We
found that 37% of dense woodlands in the county were predicted to
pose an elevated risk of exposure to infected nymphs, and that
94% of the dense-woodland areas that were predicted to harbor
elevated densities of infected nymphs were located on
privately-owned land.

Excerpt:

Lyme borreliosis differs in dogs and humans in terms of clinical
outcome following infection, diagnostic approaches, prevention
strategies and treatment recommendations. Nonetheless, serologic
evidence of exposure of dogs to B. burgdorferi agrees with the
geographical distribution of autochthonous transmission of the
agent of Lyme borreliosis, and continued monitoring of exposure
rates in dogs might allow early recognition of geographic
expansion of endemic areas as well as identify hyperendemic areas
where both humans and dogs are at increased risk of infection.
Copyright (c) 2010. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Continued