Lyme disease is named after its origins in Lyme, Connecticut, where an unusually high number of children experienced unexplained arthritis in the late 1970s. After several years of research, Dr. Willy Burgdorfer identified the underlying cause of these children’s illness as a newly identified spirochete, so was named Borrelia burgdorferi.
There are over 100 different species of Borrelia in the United States and more than 300 worldwide. The most common, Borrelia burgdorferi, with 15 subspecies, causes most of the cases of Lyme disease in the United States.3 Other common species responsible for Lyme in the United States and Europe are Borrelia garinii, Borrelia afzelii, and Borrelia miyamotoi.4 Most Borrelia infections are acquired through a deer tick bite (Ixodes scapularis on the west coast of the USA and Ixodes pacificus on the east coast). However, there is some evidence that other biting insects may also carry and spread Lyme disease.5
0 Comments