Yes, it's treatable with antibiotics and people that are treated get less sick. As stated in the article, prophylactic treatment with Doxycycline is the standard of care. Testing the tick is an alternative to that rather than something that should be expected to increase treatment...
replyThe article also mentions that symptoms sometimes persist after treatment with antibiotics.
It also has the broader public health benefit of reducing the preventative use of that class of antibiotics, which lowers the risk of antibiotic resistance generally. (In an ideal world we'd never use them preventatively.)
replyCould be a very big deal if it could be made properly inexpensive. COVID tests were, after all.
Absolutely yes, because the most severe risks are associated with the bacteria reaching the heart and into the nervous system, which is a relatively slow process. There's a window of a couple of weeks.
replyIf you could know as soon as you were bitten whether there was any risk of infection at all, that would be very valuable information.
I think it's only a one in ten chance that an infected tick would transmit the infection, anyway. But you would know whether you needed to even book an appointment.
> But you would know whether you needed to even book an appointment.
replyOnly if the test is sufficiently accurate to rule out transmission. Even molecular tests can't reliably predict that.
As long as you’re not getting bitten by a tick more than once a year if you do get bitten every time take the high dose antibiotic seems simple enough that’s what we do here at at least
replyNot everyone is in a position to take that approach so freely, alas.
replySo one more tool in the toolbox is a very good thing.
Yes, but this test cannot diagnose Lyme in humans.
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