Acknowledging that little is known about how Lyme disease is managed in Canada and what the longterm outcomes are for patients due to a lack of published data, these researchers set out to study 272 patients treated at more than a dozen healthcare facilities in two high-risk regions of Quebec in an attempt to get a handle on the situation.
I won't pretend to understand all of the information in his paper by University of Saskatchewan researchers, but the takeaway is that these scientists have made an important discovery about how certain organisms -- Borrelia burgdorferi among them -- reproduce, something that could ultimately bring medical researchers one step closer to devising treatments aimed at short-circuiting the replication process and ultimately produce a cure for Lyme disease.
This study, undertaken by Quebec researchers between 2015 and 2019, focusses on regions of southern Quebec that boast the highest provincial rates of Lyme disease in an effort to determine if a cost-effective approach to monitoring Lyme disease risk in a large territory over many years could be developed. In all, 21 sites located within provincial or regional parks known to have emerging blacklegged tick populations and appropriate forest composition were selected for sampling twice per year.
In cases where Lyme disease was not diagnosed early enough and a pacemaker needed to be implanted in order for a patient's heart to maintain normal atrioventricular (AV) node conduction in the face of Lyme carditis, this paper by Queen's University researchers concludes that the pacemaker can be safely removed following antibiotic treatment so long as the AV node has returned to normal function. Most of the time conduction issues resolve within ten days of treatment although temporary disruptions can last as long as 42 days.
This research letter penned by federal and provincial public health professionals highlights the small but real risk of Maritime residents contracting the tick-borne parasite Babesia microti from the same ticks that carry Lyme disease and anaplasmosis in the region, setting up a scenario where locals could potentially be infected with multiple tick-borne infections from a single bite.
This paper, a co-operative effort between molecular biologists from several institutions including the University of Calgary, details ongoing efforts to determine whether surface lipoprotein VIsE is adhesin-X, an unknown molecular component that likely works with spirochetal adhesin BBK32 and multifunctional surface protein OspC to assist Lyme bacteria in successfully disseminating throughout the body early in the infectious process by slowing it down upon infiltration of the fast-flowing blood steam and helping it to adhere to blood vessel walls, something that is critical for the bacteria
Recruiting more than 10,000 randomly selected residents of the Estrie region of Quebec between June and September 2018, researchers used a questionnaire in an effort to determine if there was a connection between human behaviour and tick exposure in this high Lyme risk region. This study found that only roughly a quarter of people they surveyed did tick checks, a third used tick repellants, and just under half showered after outdoor activities.
Basically, the authors of this paper advocate for the increased role of Canada's two primary blood services agencies, Hema-Quebec and Canada Blood Services, in public health surveillance. Because of the way these arms-length agencies operate, they can potentially play a critical role in the monitoring of an increasing number of human pathogens through screening blood donations and sharing that data with researchers.
In 2018, researchers from the University of Toronto and the Yukon Government's Animal Health Unit established a three-year citizen science program in the Yukon that saw hunters gathering samples from vulnerable moose and caribou populations in an effort to better monitor winter tick (Dermacentor albipictus) infestations in the territory. Through social media engagement, incentives, printed material and standardized sampling kits, participants were encouraged to submit hide samples along with completed collection information.
These researchers analyzed data relating to human Lyme disease cases and passive tick surveillance from four eastern Ontario health units (encompassing the communities of Brockville, Carleton Place, Cornwall, Gananoque, Kingston, Ottawa, Perth and surrounding rural areas) between 2010 and 2017. They found that, with the exception of Ottawa, most Lyme disease infections were acquired in the immediate vicinity of patients' homes.