New tick-borne disease discovered
September 20, 2011 in Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
(Medical Xpress) -- Yale School of Public Health researchers in collaboration with Russian scientists have discovered a new tick-borne bacterium that might be causing disease in the United States and elsewhere. Their findings appear in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
This new disease is caused by a spirochete bacterium called Borrelia miyamotoi, which is distantly related to Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Yale professor of epidemiology Durland Fish and colleagues found this new spirochete, previously known only from ticks in Japan, in deer ticks in Connecticut in 2001, but did not know if it caused disease in humans.
The bacteria have since been found in all tick species that transmit Lyme disease throughout the United States and Europe. By collaborating with a medical team studying tick-borne diseases in Russia, Yale researchers were able to compare disease symptoms in patients infected by the new spirochete in Russia with those having Lyme disease in the United States.
The new disease is characterized by high fever, which relapses without treatment and may be confused with Lyme disease. There are currently no diagnostic tests available, but Yale researchers have recently received a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a diagnostic test procedure to look for cases of this new disease in the United States.
"This is the first time we will have a chance to identify a new tick-borne disease in the United States based upon evidence that the agent occurs in ticks," said Fish, co-author of the paper and co-investigator on the NIH grant along with Peter Krause, a senior research scientist in the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases.
They report finding B. miyamotoi in about 2 percent of the deer ticks in the Northeast and Upper Midwest and have been conducting experiments with mice in the laboratory that become infected when fed upon by deer ticks. Because bites from deer ticks cause more than 25,000 cases of Lyme disease each year, according to the CDC, the Yale team is gearing up to determine if there is any illness that is caused by B. miyamotoi infection in the United States.
Provided by
Yale University
-
Lyme Disease 'App' For iPhone Developed by Yale School of Public Health
May 04, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Lone Star tick migrates to Long Island
Jul 07, 2006 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Birds Play an Important Role in the Spread of Lyme Disease
Dec 23, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
On the trail of a vaccine for Lyme disease: Researchers target tick saliva
Nov 19, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Watching Lyme disease-causing microbes move in ticks
Nov 16, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Classical and Quantum Mechanics via Lie algebras
Apr 15, 2011
- More from Physics Forums - Independent Research
More news stories
Researchers find genetic risk factor for pulmonary fibrosis
A paper recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-written by physicians and scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine finds that an important genetic risk factor for pulmonary fibros ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
8 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Biomarkers discovered for inflammatory bowel disease
Using the Department of Defense Serum Repository (DoDSR), University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers have identified a number of biomarkers for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which could help with earlier diagnosis and ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
8 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
CDC says high number of public pools contain microbes
(HealthDay)—Three-quarters of public schools in the metro Atlanta area contain microbes, including bacteria indicating the presence of fecal matter, according to research published in the May 17 issue of ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
9 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Study examines outbreak of spinal infections in Michigan
(HealthDay)—Factors such as increased case finding may explain why Michigan had half of the total spinal infections associated with contaminated methylprednisolone acetate in the recent fungal meningitis ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
9 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
World not ready for mass flu outbreak, WHO says
The world is unprepared for a massive virus outbreak, the deputy chief of the World Health Organization warned Tuesday, amid fears that H7N9 bird flu striking China could morph into a form that spreads easily among people.
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
10 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
If you can remember it, you can remember it wrong
(Medical Xpress)—Native peoples in regions where cameras are uncommon sometimes react with caution when their picture is taken. The fear that something must have been stolen from them to create the photo ...
B vitamins could delay dementia
(Medical Xpress)—Despite spending billions of dollars on research and development, drug companies have been unable to come up with effective treatments for dementia and Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Now, A. ...
New sleeping pill poised to hit US markets
An experimental sleeping pill from US drug company Merck is effective at helping people fall and stay asleep, according to reviewers at the US Food and Drug Administration, which could soon approve the new drug.
Insight into the dazzling impact of insulin in cells
Australian scientists have charted the path of insulin action in cells in precise detail like never before. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for understanding what goes wrong in diabetes.
Reducing caloric intake delays nerve cell loss
Activating an enzyme known to play a role in the anti-aging benefits of calorie restriction delays the loss of brain cells and preserves cognitive function in mice, according to a study published in the May ...
Antidepressant reduces stress-induced heart condition
A drug commonly used to treat depression and anxiety may improve a stress-related heart condition in people with stable coronary heart disease, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.
Sep 20, 2011
Rank: not rated yet