Cases of Lyme disease soar in Cork/Kerry region
There has been a ten-fold increase in the incidence of Lyme disease in the Cork/Kerry region alone, amid concerns the extent of the disease nationally is being hugely underestimated.
The HSE has disclosed the number of patient samples being positive after first-stage testing for disease in Cork/Kerry rose from 44, in 2007, to 425, in 2018.
The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act.
However, Eoin Healy, an expert on the tick species that spreads the disease, suggested that, perhaps, 80% of first-stage positive tests would also be positive after-second stage testing in the UK.
If this is the case, there would be 340 confirmed cases of Lyme disease for Cork/Kerry alone, in 2018.
Dr Healy described the figures as “alarming but not surprising’’ since there are good grounds for believing that many cases are undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed as conditions such as summer flu, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and other illnesses.
Dr Healy, research associate at the UCC School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said incidence of the disease was being massively underestimated and underreported.
“Extrapolating from the Cork and Kerry data, there are likely to be approximately 2,250 cases per annum in Ireland,’’ he said.
However, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, only 100 to 200 cases of less severe forms of Lyme disease occur here annually and an average of 14 cases of severe Lyme disease each year.
Hundreds of people could have Lyme without realising it.
Many GPs fail to diagnose it in their patients and the current blood testing system for confirming the disease is also missing a significant number of cases, it has been claimed by a leading consultant.
Jack Lambert, Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Mater Hospital, Dublin, and UCD, said even though tick-borne infections are common in Ireland, many GPs and specialists miss the Lyme diagnosis.
“Most patients I see with long-standing Lyme have gone to a GP at one time, who misdiagnosed their rash as ‘ringworm’ or did not even think of Lyme as part of the differential diagnosis,’’ Dr Lambert told the Irish Examiner.
