According to the CDC, “…untreated Lyme disease during pregnancy can lead to infection of the placenta” and “There are no published studies assessing developmental outcomes of children whose mothers acquired Lyme disease during pregnancy.”

To address this gap in clinical knowledge, Invisible has added a new CME course, “Congenital Lyme and Co-infections,” which reviews the latest evidence associated with mother-to-fetus transmission of the most important tick-borne pathogens. Diseases covered includes Lyme disease, babesiosis, tick-borne encephalitis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, bartonellosis anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, relapsing fever, and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE, a flavivirus).

The course is taught by Jack Lambert, MD, PhD, a Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Genitourinary Medicine at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, and a Full Clinical Professor at University College Dublin School of Medicine. His current research focus is on infections in pregnancy, and he is also the founder of the Lyme Resource Centre in Scotland, which is working to help the educate the public and health-care professionals on tick-borne illnesses.

In the end, Dr. Lambert notes the limited number of studies on this important topic, as he asks, “Why are we not doing further research on this?”

Cambridge Forum, a GBH Forum affiliate, recently hosted a discussion on the alarming spread of tick-borne diseases and what we can do about it. It featured Invisible International experts, Dr. Nev Zubcevik and Kris Newby, along with Brian Owens, author of "Lyme disease in Canada.” Topics included tick-bite prevention, new Lyme vaccines in the pipeline, and problems with Lyme disease diagnosis.

Dr. Zubcevik, a Harvard-trained physician and Invisible’s Chief Medical Officer, spoke about the urgent need for direct DNA Lyme detection tests, to replace outdated, inaccurate antibody testing. (The current five-band antibody threshold for the U.S. Western blot test is decades old and is not based on in-human testing.) She also reviewed Invisible’s top priorities for filling the gaps in knowledge in tick-borne diseases:

1. More research funding.

2. Bringing together community-based physicians and academic researchers to share evidence on the most effective treatment protocols.

3. Organizing a diagnostics incubator to bring better testing to market faster.

4. Expanding Invisible’s free, online library of accredited medical education courses on tick-borne diseases.

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. The new codes will help fix this.