It’s a disease that is wreaking havoc. Long misdiagnosed, Lyme disease affects more and more patients year after year. 67,000 in 2018, 40,000 in 2017, according to the Ministry of Health. For three years, this disease caused by a tick bite infected with the bacteria Borrelia has been in the spotlight. It must be said that cases increased significantly from 2014. According to figures from Public Health France and the Sentinelles surveillance network, the incidence of this tick-borne disease was stable around 26,000 cases recorded each year between 2009 and 2014. Then rose to 33,200 in 2015 and 54,600 in 2016.
Deprived, the medical profession is still struggling to diagnose and treat it. In July 2018, the Ministry of Health was concerned about an increase in cases. The blame for global warming: “Climatic conditions favorable to the development of ticks and the awareness of health professionals of the diagnosis of this disease could explain this increase”, indicated the Directorate General of Health (DGS).
For patients, complications from the disease can be terrible. If its manifestation can be limited to a characteristic redness around the bite, it causes in some cases disabling and painful disorders, especially neurological, joint and muscle. Especially since those who have been diagnosed, treated and cured can be re-infected again if they are bitten again. But the patients are mainly victims of medical wandering. In the book A path of grass and brambles published in 2018 by First editions, Maria, a patient, writes: “With this long wandering, the bacteria have reached my neurological system. There are better things, some worse ones, but the road is still long. I try to keep hope and I waltz between therapies, pain and life. I think that without treatment, I wouldn’t be able to walk… “
The divided doctors
The disease is the subject of intense controversy between the medical world and patient associations. The associations ask for recognition of a chronic form, that is to say one whose conventional treatments do not overcome.
Patients also accuse some healthcare professionals of believing that Lyme disease is psychosomatic, that is, it could be made worse by emotional factors. And doctors, in particular, those of the French-speaking infectious pathology society, do not recognize the chronic form of the disease. They denounce overdiagnosed and overtreated patients due to the media hype. Within the medical profession itself, the file divides. There are two schools: that of doctors who want to treat the disease by administering antibiotics for a prolonged period and those who prefer to shorten the duration of treatment.
Hope for a vaccine
Good news for patients: a vaccine could be developed in the United States. In any case, this is what American experts want. “Countermeasures such as vaccines are needed to stem the growing number of cases per year,” said Dr. Steven Schutzer, lead report author and medical scientist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
In France, the biotechnology company Valneva has already started to develop a vaccine, VLA15. The second clinical study was launched last July. Researchers determine the best dosage of the vaccine.
“Our end goal, using larger dosages and testing an alternative vaccination regimen, is to further optimize our vaccine by trying to achieve already high efficacy from the first tick season,” said Wolfang Bender, the medical director of Valneva. Will it still be necessary to market it if the results are convincing.
–
