Tick talk on Boston podcast, New Lyme diagnostic codes, PBSNews on tick spread


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This week the rise in tick-borne diseases is being discussed on both PBSNews and WGBH Boston. The Boston livestream (Feb. 22) allows listener participation. Good news for Lyme patients: the WHO has added 15 new medical diagnostic codes for Lyme disease, providing patients with more avenues for medical insurance reimbursement.

Invisible News

Tune in to Cambridge Forum’s broadcast on “Tick, Tick, Ticks”

On Tuesday, February 22 at 5 pm ET, Cambridge Forum, a public discussion organization based in Harvard Square, will feature Kris Newby, Invisible’s communication director and author of “Bitten,” and Brian Owens, author of “Lyme Disease in Canada.” They will discuss the alarming spread of Lyme disease and the long-term implications of not aggressively addressing the tick-borne disease epidemic. This program will be recorded live on Zoom and audience participation is encouraged. Later, it will be edited into a podcast and NPR radio show, and uploaded to YouTube on the WGBH Forum Network.

Watch here

Stories from the Field

What you need to know about the new Lyme ICD-11 diagnostic codes

The World Health Organization (WHO) has added 15 new medical diagnostic codes for Lyme disease, which replaced four older codes and officially went into effect on January 1, 2022. Over time, these codes will provide patients with more avenues for medical insurance reimbursement and enable researchers to better track and analyze Lyme disease complications, treatments, and outcomes.

The International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition (ICD-11), replaces the ICD-10 as the foundation for identifying health trends and statistics worldwide. It is also the international standard for reporting mortality, morbidity, and other conditions affecting health.

While the WHO recognized Lyme borreliosis to be a “disease of consequence” in the 1990s, there were only four Lyme ICD codes until now (acute Lyme, and Lyme arthritis, meningitis, and polyneuropathy). These codes didn’t recognize chronic Lyme or any of the serious, potentially fatal complications of the disease that have come to light over the last three decades.

Lyme patients can learn more about these codes and how it will improve their care by listening to an interview with Jenna Luche-Thayer, MIA, Founder and Director of the Ad Hoc Committee for Health Equity in ICD-11 Borreliosis Codes. The podcast is hosted by Kristina Bauer, Director of Texas Lyme Alliance and an advocate for congenital and pediatric Lyme treatment.

Watch here

Why Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are on the rise

Science writer Ula Chrobak has written an excellent article on the factors contributing to the rise in ticks and tick-borne diseases, published in Knowable Magazine and on PBSNews.

“Scientists are working to disentangle a patchwork of drivers — such as land development, climate change, and the availability of blood to suck from an array of different critters, large and small,” says Chrobak.

Important takeaways in the article are:

There are 18 tick-borne pathogens identified in the US and the 27-plus known globally.
A 2021 review of climate modeling studies found that black-legged ticks are expected to expand farther northward with warming temperatures across the Dakotas, northern Minnesota, Canada, and Alaska by 2050.
Fragmentation of forests into smaller, isolated patches increases the density of young, infected nymph-stage ticks. These small-patch nymphs were infected with Borrelia burgdorferi 70 percent of the time, compared to 48 percent of the time in larger patches.
In one study of the San Francisco Bay Area, lead researcher Daniel Salkeld, PhD, (shown above) found Borrelia anywhere his team was able to collect at least 10 ticks.

Read more

Featured Blog

Lyme disease heightens risk of mental disorders, suicidality

In a new study, U.S. and Danish researchers report that patients who received a hospital diagnosis of Lyme disease—inpatient, outpatient, or at the ER—had a 28 percent higher rate of mental disorders and were twice as likely to have attempted suicide post-infection, compared to individuals without the diagnosis.

The study, a collaboration of Columbia University and the Copenhagen Research Centre for Mental Health, is believed to be the first large, population-based study examining the relationship between Lyme disease and psychiatric outcomes.

The research appears in the July 28 online edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Read the blog

Montecalvo Platform for Tick-borne Illness Education

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This course is presented by Edward Breitschwerdt, DVM, a leading expert on Bartonellosis in mammals, and the Melanie S. Steele professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He is also an adjunct professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center and directs the Intracellular Pathogens Research Laboratory in the Institute for Comparative Medicine.

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Invisible International
@invisibleintl

Beware… of the ticks! While it may be cold out, many areas in the US still aren’t cold enough to render these creep… https://t.co/RpgAhFZXkp

5:05 PM - Feb 4, 2022

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