More than 3 decades ago, there was a sudden incidence of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis close to the community of Lyme, Connecticut. This unexpected outburst of illness led Dr. Allen Steere to identify the Lyme disease in United States in the year 1975. Owing to the time of the year during which the outbreak took place, it was also highlighted that the illness had some correlation with an arthropod vector. |
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A few years later in the year 1982, Willy Burgdorfer brought forth the etiologic agent of Lyme disease by isolating spirochetes of the genus Borrelia from the intestines of Ixodes ticks. This etiologic agent was referred to as Borrelia burgdorferi. Since the discovery of the pathogenic bacterium, the incidence of the disease has been on the rise in the US, with the number going beyond 150,000 since 1982.
As the Lyme disease occurs after a tick bite, many people are under the misconception that the disease is caused by ticks. Instead, the causal agent is the bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi that is commonly found on the white footed mouse and deer. The ticks that are reported to be frequent carriers of the disease are the Ixodes scapularis or black legged tick, and Ixodes pacificus or western black legged tick. When such an infected tick bites human being or an animal, the bacteria is transferred to the bloodstream of the host. However, it is also known that the disease only spreads if the tick attaches itself to the host organism for more than 36 hours. Therefore, the transmission of Lyme disease actually involves not one but many living organisms. The infection could produce immediate symptoms or it could even take months or years for the infection to be apparent.
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