Invisible International recently added a 36th course to its library of accredited Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses on environmental & vector-borne diseases. Our anytime-anywhere education means faster diagnosis and more effective treatments for environmental & other vector-borne diseases.

Our courses are taught by topic experts and each is annotated with the latest evidence from peer-reviewed journal articles. The courses and CME platform are accredited by two governing bodies, American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME). This enables doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other frontline healthcare providers to earn educational credits for learning the latest, evidence-based practices for caring for patients with Lyme and other vector-borne diseases. These courses are offered at no-cost, thanks to the Montecalvo Foundation’s generous underwriting of this initiative.

Course topics include:

• Prevention
• Early/Acute Lyme disease
• Late/Disseminated Lyme disease
• Diagnosis
• Treatment
• Persistent Lyme
• Tick co-infections
• Epidemiology
• History of Lyme disease
• One Health approaches

The Invisible Education Initiative, funded by the Montecalvo Foundation, provides no-cost, accredited Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses that focus on vector-borne and environmental diseases worsened by climate change. These courses are available to clinicians and the public. To donate to this initiative and to learn about Invisible International, please go here http://invisible.international/give.

You can also search by course topic here: https://learn.invisible.international/courses/

In 2020, teams competed in Invisible’s Educate & Elevate Hackathon to create solutions to improve tick-borne illness awareness and prevention. Winning teams received grants and inclusion in Invisible’s Innovation Incubator. The #tickcheckchallenge grew out of one of the hackathon teams, and was a collaboration between Invisible, PA Lyme, and Louis & Dan and the Invisible Band.

To participate, listen to the song, learn the dance, then post your creative interpretation on social media. (The dance is based on the classic head-shoulders-knees-&-toes children’s dance reimagined for tick bite prevention.) It’s fun, energizing, and teaches children and those who are young-at-heart how to check for ticks.

Go to this website to learn how to record your own TikTok-style interpretation of the dance and share it on social media.

https://invisible.international/tick-check-challenge/

The Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC) has released its 2023 Pet Parasite Forecast, alerting veterinarians and pet owners that the risk of getting Lyme disease is higher than ever, and that ticks are moving into new geographic areas.

“Lyme disease, in particular, is an important One Health pathogen that occurs in both veterinary and human medical settings. CAPC’s Pet Parasite Forecast is critical to alerting pet owners, veterinarians, and physicians to the risks this year and reinforcing CAPC’s recommendation that all pets need to be annually tested and protected year-round,” said Dr. Christopher Carpenter, DVM, and Chief Executive Officer of CAPC.

Highlights of the 2023 include:

• Lyme disease continues to expand outside of the original high-risk areas in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.
• Increases in risk beyond last year’s forecasts are expected in eastern Kentucky, northeastern Tennessee, western Michigan, and Ohio. High-risk hot-spots are again predicted in northern/western Lower Michigan, and southern/northeastern Ohio.
• A higher-than-normal risk continues in North Dakota, northeastern South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and eastern Kentucky.
• The southward movement of Borrelia burgdorferi is also evident in the increasing risk in the Carolinas and Tennessee.
• CAPC reports a northern expansion into Canada, including southern regions of Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba, as well as on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, due to increased Lyme detection in Canadian dogs.

You can look up infection rates for ticks in your area using CAPC’s county-level maps:

https://capcvet.org/maps#/2023...

For more data and maps on tick-borne diseases, go here: https://capcvet.org/articles/2...

Christine Green, MD, a Stanford-trained, board-certified family medicine physician with 30 years experience treating patients with tick-borne illness, discusses common symptoms and the diagnostic process for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases. In this interview, she answers these frequently asked questions:

• If I’m achy and tired all the time, could I have Lyme disease?
• What’s the best test for diagnosing Lyme disease?
• How do you treat Lyme disease?
• Can you cure chronic Lyme disease?

Wirecutter, The New York Times’ product-review arm, has posted ideas on ways to prevent tick bites. Their recommendations include advice on pretreated tick-repelling garments, tick repellents, preventative pet treatments, tick checks, and how to remove embedded ticks.