babesiosis
Precision Diagnosis for Tick-Borne Diseases?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Caption: Adult female Lone Star tick
Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH
For many of us who enjoy roaming the great outdoors, there are some things to watch out for. Now is the peak season for “tick checks.” An estimated 90 species of these blood-sucking arachnids inhabit the continental United States, and tick-borne diseases have been on the rise over the past three decades. While not all tick bites will make you sick, the critters can transmit at least 19 types of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa known to cause Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, and a host of other potentially serious illnesses [1].
If a tick becomes attached to your skin, there’s currently no quick way to determine if you’ve been exposed to a pathogen and, if so, which specific one(s). If you get sick, getting a definitive diagnosis in order to get the right treatment for your tick’s particular pathogen(s) can involve multiple tests at a cost of about $200 each. Wouldn’t it be great if there was one simple, low-cost way to test for all major tickborne diseases? Such a test is now under development by NIH-funded researchers, and it recently passed an encouraging early research milestone.
