Jun 18, 2019
By Jane Brown
With tick populations expanding in Canada, including here in Toronto, concerns around lyme disease continue. Although the City of Toronto website says the risk of getting lyme disease in Toronto is considered to be low.
The blacklegged tick is the only type of tick that can transmit the bacteria that causes lyme disease.
But we are learning about a breakthrough in understanding the lingering effects of lyme disease, which could help lead to better treatment.
Treating lyme disease can be tricky. Even after a regimen of antibiotics and after the bacteria is apparently gone from the patient, symptoms like chronic arthritis can linger.
Now researchers from Virginia Tech, Yale and Harvard have found that even after the lyme bacteria has been eradicated, a molecule shed by the virus, previously undetectable, can linger in patients’ joints. Researchers say the next steps are finding a way to target that molecule and destroy it, or perhaps bond it to another molecule that would prevent peoples’ bodies from having a negative response.
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