May Is Lyme Awareness Month
May Is Lyme Awareness Month
The Newtown Lyme Disease Task Force wants all residents to know that May is Lyme Awareness Month because the problem of Lyme disease is not under control in the state of Connecticut.
While SARS, West Nile, and anthrax may steal the headlines, Lyme and related tick-borne diseases have continued to spread through backyards, quietly robbing many Connecticut citizens of the healthy lives they once enjoyed.
Lyme is the most commonly reported vectorborne disease in the United States. The Center for Disease Control found that Lyme rates climbed 40 percent nationally between 2001 and 2002, although Lyme continues to be underreported. The CDC has said its numbers may represent only ten percent of actual diagnosed cases. Connecticut reported 4,631 cases in 2002, and has maintained the highest incidence of Lyme disease of any state in the nation since 1992.
The Newtown task force has joined the Connecticut Lyme Disease Coalition (CLDC), an alliance of organizations devoted to Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, to promote awareness of the diseases, prevention, and treatment.
Lyme is difficult to diagnose because the bullâs-eye rash â the best definitive diagnostic marker available â does not always appear. Laboratory tests for Lyme disease are not definitive; both false negatives and false positives appear. Results vary from lab to lab. The timing of the test is important since antibodies need time to develop. Antibiotics administered before the test may affect lab results.
Lyme disease mimics many diseases and may affect multiple systems within the body. Newly discovered co-infections such as babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Bartonella (cat-scratch fever), and Mycoplasma fermentans complicate diagnosis even further and may be partially responsible for diagnostic and treatment dilemmas.
Delayed treatment increases the risk of serious and potentially disabling neurological, psychiatric, arthritic, and cardiac involvement as well as the possibility of chronic complications.
More than 50 percent of the cases reported nationally involve children under 12. Lyme disease was first identified in school children in Lyme, Conn., in 1977. Almost 30 years later, the State of Connecticut still does not allocate any funding for the prevention of Lyme disease.