Invisible International now offers 30+ medical education courses on new research and best practices for treating tick- and flea-borne diseases, delivered by some of the most knowledgeable experts in the world. Can you help us integrate these courses into university curriculums?

If we can reach our funding goal by year’s end, we’ll be able to share these courses with major medical, nursing, and veterinarian schools across the nation, through ground rounds lectures and integration into university curriculums. We believe that this is the quickest way to get help to the hundreds-of-thousands of people who contract Lyme disease and other vector-borne diseases each year.

In just two years, Invisible’s team has published the first library of no-cost continuing medical education (CME) courses focused on diagnosing and treating vector-borne diseases. All are submitted for accredited by the American Academy of Family Physicians, and our educational platform has been approved by the prestigious Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).

The Invisible Education Initiative, funded by the Montecalvo Foundation, provides free, accredited Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses that focus on vector-borne and environmental illness within a One Health framework. 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

One Health is a problem-solving framework that strives to improve the health of all living things on the planet through collaborations between animal, plant, environmental, and human health experts.

On Nov. 5, Invisible International is hosting an online seminar and hackathon where participants will brainstorm on ways to reduce the impact of tick- and vector-borne diseases, which have worsened with climate change, ecosystem imbalances, and public health funding inequities. The hackathon is focused on finding the best ways to share the knowledge of animal clinicians with human clinicians, in both medical education and clinical environments.

The morning will include lightning talks that inform and define the challenges in tackling these problems. The afternoon will feature a hackathon where teams will hold initial meetings to discuss how they will tackle their hacks and present them to judges later in the year. All solutions are welcome, including software apps and social engineering solutions.

We invite all animal and human health professionals, students, hackers, creators, and others interested in One Health to join us to learn and compete for team prizes.

Impakter, a news site that promotes ecological balance and sustainability, has published an informative article and video explaining the One Health concept and why we need take this wholistic approach to approaching disease control in this era of rapid climate change. This article goes on to say:

“If this century should have opened our eyes, it is that there are common threats to all humanity and its survival, ones which often originate in a hidden forest, in a swamp, in an urban market – a nonhuman enemy, an infectious disease that potentially can cross over to us from animals, exacerbated by our territorial expansion into heretofore isolated, unpopulated areas, affected by changes in climate. From HIV, Ebola, SARS, Zika, to the continuing Covid pandemic, we have so far experienced only the tip of this very deadly virus spear.”

Donating the tissues of a loved one who dies of Lyme disease is one of the best ways to accelerate research into better diagnostics and treatments for tick-borne diseases, because sample acquisition is often the most expensive and time-consuming part of a research study.

The Lyme Disease Biobank (LDB), run by Bay Area Lyme Foundation (BAL), offers the best program for facilitating tissue donations and for delivering these samples to qualified researchers. LDB works in partnership with two non-profits, the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) and MyLymeData.

Since the tissue bank was launched in 2018, more than 10 families have donated tissue from deceased loved ones, and over 1,100 blood and urine samples have been collected. Thus far, seventy projects have been approved to receive samples. These tissues are being sent to researchers to study infection and inflammation processes and markers, which will provide insights for improving future diagnostics and treatments.

People with long-haul Lyme disease symptoms are often sidelined by the medical community. In a 2019 survey of 1,900 Lyme patients, 74% reported being treated disrespectfully by a healthcare provider, and 67% said that they postponed or avoided medical treatment due to discrimination, disrespect, or difficulty obtaining care.

In this E-Colloquium, three experts discuss “Borrelia persistence,” addressing the questions, “How does the Lyme bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, survive a recommended dose of antibiotics in the human body, and what treatment strategies can be used to eradicate the surviving organisms?”