BACKGROUND Lyme disease (LD), a multisystem infection caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto (B. burgdorferi), is the most reported vector-borne disease in North America, and by 2020, 80% of the population in central and eastern Canada could live in LD risk areas. Among the key factors for minimising the impact of LD are the accurate diagnosis and appropriate management of ...

Lyme borrelosis is a multi-systemic disease caused byBorrelia burgdorferisensu lato. A complete presentation of the disease is an extremely unusual oberservation, in which a skin lesion follows a tick bite, the lesion itself is followed by heart and nervous system involvement, and later on by arthritis; late involvement of the eye, nervous system, joints and skin may also occur. Information on ...

An indirect immunofluorescence test was used during 1982-1983 to identify antibodies to Lyme disease spirochetes in humans, white-footed mice, and raccoons. Serologic tests detected IgM or total Ig antibodies in serum samples from 67 persons. Onset of illness, as marked by erythema chronicum migrans (ECM), occurred mainly during July and August. The majority of the persons with Lyme disease liv...

An ELISA containing a purified flagellar antigen from Borrelia burgdorferi (FLA-ELISA) was evaluated. The FLA-ELISA, detecting IgM and IgG together, did not have adequate specificity by itself. Good accuracy was obtained, however, when the FLA-ELISA was the first step in a two-step protocol that used immunoblotting as a conditional second test. Samples that scored positive or equivocal by the F...

CONTEXT Diagnosis of infection with Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease (LD), has been impeded by the lack of effective assays to detect active infection. OBJECTIVE To determine whether B. burgdorferi-specific immune complexes are detectable during active infection in LD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Cross-sectional analysis of serum samples from 168 patients fulfilling Centers...

This study examines the distribution of laboratory-confirmed cases of Lyme borreliosis in Scotland and the clinical spectrum of presentations within NHS Highland. Methods General demographic data (age/sex/referring Health Board) from all cases of Lyme borreliosis serologically confirmed by the National Lyme Borreliosis Testing Laboratory from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2013 were analysed. Cl...

Three genetic markers of Borrelia burgdorferi have been associated with disseminated disease: the OspC type, the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer type (RST), and vlsE. Here, we modified previous methods so as to identify the three markers by PCR and restriction fragment length polymorphism in parallel, analyzed B. burgdorferi isolates from erythema migrans (EM) skin lesions in 91 patients, and co...

Public health statistics recorded an increasing trend in the incidence of tick bites and erythema migrans (EM) in the Netherlands. We investigated whether the disease incidence could be predicted by a spatially explicit categorization model, based on environmental factors and a training set of tick absence-presence data. Presence and absence of Ixodes ricinus were determined by the blanket-drag...