New CDC Lyme disease report - Cases doubling!!

There is a new CDC Lyme disease report released June 14, 2007.

Reported cases of Lyme disease have more than doubled since 1991

I'm not sure if the above is good or bad news. The problem is that there has been tremendous under-reporting of Lyme. If cases have been level but reporting is up, then that is good news since the problem is being properly identified. If cases are really going up, then, of course, it is bad news.

The report also said 93 percent of reported cases were concentrated in 10 states.

The bad news for Pennsylvanians is that we are one of those 10 states...

In 1991 fewer than 10,000 cases of Lyme disease were reported.

There has been an increase in awareness of Lyme disease. There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of the medical community and legislators are in denial or ignorance as to the true extent of the problem.


Below are some notes regarding the actual report

With approximately 20,000 new cases reported each year, Lyme disease is the most
common vector-borne disease in the United States

The question is, how many people have not been adequately diagnosed. The reality is that it is probably impossible to answer that question.

Since Lyme disease became nationally notifiable in 1991, the annual number of
reported cases has more than doubled.

It is good news that the statistics are being kept on a national level for the last 16 years.

According to the report, the number of newly reported Lyme cases are as follows

• 2003 5730


• 2004 3985


• 2005 4287

One of the disturbing pieces of information in the report is the number of cases in children aged 5 through 9 and 10 through 14. A lot of kids are coming down with Lyme.



The CDC Press release can be found at
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/2007/r070614.htm

The Full report link can be found at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/ in the June 15, 2007 / Vol. 56 / No. 23 issue


The report iteself is at
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5623a1.htm