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LDA NEWS & UPDATES
September 30, 2022
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Scientific Reports (Szewczyk-Dąbrowska, A., et al.) published “Correlation between COVID-19 severity and previous exposure of patients to Borrelia spp.” on September 24, 2022. Researchers found an association between the severity of the course of COVID infection in patients that also had evidence of past Lyme disease infection.
Investigators identified COVID-positive patients who also had confirmed exposure to Lyme through serological testing for multi-antigens. They evaluated three groups of patients: patients with severe COVID requiring hospitalizations, those with asymptomatic-mild COVID, as well patients that had not been infected by COVID. Findings showed that patients with increased levels of Lyme IgG antibodies strongly correlated with increased COVID illness severity and hospitalizations. Read more.
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Image from Science Reports, Szewczyk‑Dąbrowska, A., et al. (2022). “Risks in COVID-19 are linked to a history of tick bites and related infections.” | | |
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Cureus (Sathi S., et al.) published “Ischemic Stroke With Hemorrhagic Conversion in a Case of Lyme Neuroborreliosis” on August 15, 2022. The authors present a case study of a patient (59-year-old male and resident of Michigan) with ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic conversion, who also had positive serology for Lyme neuroborreliosis. The man was admitted to a hospital while visiting Florida. Read more. | |
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Current Problems in Cardiology (Wang, C., et al.) published “Long-term Outcomes in Treated Lyme Carditis” in *October 2022. The authors provide results from an observational study of post-treatment outcomes for seven patients with serologically confirmed Lyme carditis.
*Version of Record: Aug. 24, 2022.
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The patients ranged from ages 14-56; six were male. Each initially presented with high-degree atrioventricular block and other signs or symptoms of heart distress. They were each treated with a standard protocol that had been developed by the medical center which included a course of antibiotics and a pre-discharge stress test to assess stability of the atrioventricular node. Read more. | |
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Fluids and Barriers of the CNS (Thompson, D., et al.) published “The choroid plexus and its role in the pathogenesis of neurological infections” on September 10, 2022. This review article summarizes the current knowledge of the choroid plexus and presents a new understanding of the role that the choroid plexus plays in the pathogenesis of neurological infections. Read more. | |
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Bethany Cucka, BS, et al., published “Spotting the target: clinical clues in the diagnosis of disseminated Lyme disease in pregnancy” in American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology on March 18, 2022. The study | |
illustrates the patient case of a 33-year-old woman who was pregnant with her second child and, at 33 weeks’ gestation, presented with ten days of bifrontal headache despite treatment, two days of pruritic body rash, and mild trans transaminitis. Read more. | |
The American Journal of Medicine (Bakshi, C.S., et al.) has published the pre-proof “SARS-CoV-2 is Emerging in White-Tailed Deer and Can Infect and Spread Among Deer Mice Experimentally: What About Deer Ticks?” on August 16, 2022. Authors have found that a large number of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the U.S. have become infected with COVID-19. It is believed that this has occurred through reverse zoonosis in which the virus was transmitted to deer from infected humans. Read more. | |
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Hassan Hakimi, et al., published “Advances in understanding red blood cell modifications by Babesia” in PLOS Pathogens on September 15, 2022, to further investigate how the parasite invades and multiplies within red blood cells (RBCs) of mammalian hosts. Read more. | |
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Medical and Clinical Research published Alan B. MacDonald’s review article “Microbial DNA globular liquid crystal-like deposits inside Lewy bodies in four Lewy dementia patients” on August 10, 2022. MacDonald found evidence of both diffuse cortical Lewy body dementia and active neuroborreliosis in | |
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four autopsied brains.
Specimens for the study were donated to the Dr. Paul H. Duray MD Research Foundation to be examined for potential Borrelia infections. The specimens originated from patients who had exhibited clinical signs of Lewy body dementia, such as visual hallucinations and progressive dementia. Read more.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), (Pereira, M.J., et al.) published “Lipoproteome screening of the Lyme disease agent identifies inhibitors of antibody-mediated complement killing” on March 21, 2022. In this study, researchers identified two lipoproteins (ElpB and ElpQ) that formed a tight bond to human C1 (a protein complex that activates a pathway of the complement system). These proteins assist B. burgdorferi to hide from the human complement system, which is the first defense of the immune system. This evasion of the immune system allows for the dissemination of bacteria throughout the human body (blood, tissues, organs, bone, etc.) resulting in Lyme disease. Read more. | |
Borrelia burgdorferi, Courtesy Dave Dorward, Ph.D., NIH | |
RMSF rash on child’s face. Courtesy, CDC. | |
Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases (Bishop, A., et al.) published “Increasing Incidence of Spotted Fever Group Rickettsioses in the United States, 2010–2018” on September 9, 2022. The study authors analyzed surveillance data from 2010-2018 that had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | |
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(CDC) through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System on cases of spotted fever group Rickettsiosis.
According to the collected statistics, white males were at the highest risk. It is unclear how many cases were due to Rocky Mountain spotted fever (Rickettsia rickettsii) and how many were attributed to Rickettsioses. Read more.
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Anne Spichler-Moffarah, et al., published “Cardiac Complications of Human Babesiosis” in Clinical Infectious Diseases on August 19, 2022. The article explains that many babesiosis patients have mild to moderate expressions of the disease, however, fatal circumstances can result. While cardiac issues are common, the comprehensive range of cardiac | |
disease, as well as the rate of recurrence, risks, and patient outcomes are unknown. Consequently, the researchers performed a review of the records for patients who were admitted to Yale-New Haven Hospital from January 2011 to October 2021 with babesiosis and cardiac complications that had been occurring over the past decade. Read more. | |
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Open Access Government recently interviewed Paul Mead, Chief of the Bacterial Diseases Branch, Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). The interview focused on the increasing risk that | |
Lyme and tick-borne diseases pose to health in the U.S., and covers a number of important topics, including how bites from infected ticks pass pathogens to humans, symptoms that are associated with different tick-borne diseases, and steps that outdoor workers can take to prevent tick bites. Read more. | |
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The Journal of the American Medical Association (Oster, M.E., et al.) published “Myocarditis Cases Reported After mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccination in the US From December 2020 to August 2021” on January 25, 2022. The authors published a descriptive study that analyzes reports of myocarditis from 192,405,448 US individuals (>12 years of age) to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) after receiving COVID-19 vaccines. Read more. | | |
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Pathogens, Theo Schetters, published “Mechanisms Involved in the Persistence of Babesia canis Infection in Dogs” on June 29, 2019. The researcher used controlled experimental infection with B. canis to observe events of infection and the eventual development of signs and symptoms of this parasitic disease in dogs. Very few parasites are detected in the blood of dogs infected with Babesia canis, even in those presenting with severe clinical manifestations of disease. Read more. | |
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The Open Journal Of Public Health (Scott, J.D., et al.) published “Morphological Abnormalities in Blacklegged Tick, Ixodes scapularis, Initiated by Environmental Contaminant” on August 29, 2022. The authors describe the deformity observed in a tick collected from a songbird during routine bird monitoring activities.
The tick, collected from a juvenile American Robin, was a fully-fed larva with a normal physical structure which then molted into a deformed nymph. Read more.
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IDCases (Bobojama, S. B., et al.) published the case report “Human Borrelia miyamotoi infection: A cause of persistent fever and severe hyperthermia in New England” on September 6, 2022. The report describes a patient from southwestern Connecticut, a 75-year-old male, who was transported by ambulance to the emergency department (ED) after he had been found unresponsive at his home. Read more. | |
LDA provided a research grant to Jorge Cervantes, MD, Ph.D., Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso in 2020. His research “Serum Transcriptomic Analysis of Human Monocytes Upon Exposure to Acute & | |
Convalescent Sera From Lyme Disease Patients” was accepted for a Poster Presentation at Cytokines 2022 Hybrid: 10th Annual Meeting of the International Cytokine & Interferon Society Joint Meeting with the 4th International Conference on Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC4). Read more. | |
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Jorge Cervantes,
MD, Ph.D.
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The Journal of Applied Ecology (Tran, T., et al.) published “Predicting spatio-temporal population patterns of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease pathogen” on September 13, 2022. The authors investigated the population changes of B. burgdorferi from the impact of several environmental features. Read more. | |
Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases (González, J., et al.) published “Repellency of novel catnip (Nepeta cataria) cultivar extracts against Ixodes scapularis and Haemaphysalis longicornis (Acari: Ixodida: Ixodidae)” in November 2022. To develop natural alternatives for commercial tick repellents that are as effective or even more effective than DEET, the authors investigated the properties of two extracts derived from novel catnip cultivars, CR3 and CR9. Read more. | |
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