Lyme Disease May Be Sexually Transmitted, Study Suggests
From study author Marianne Middelveen: Motile spirochetes identified as Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto were cultured from vaginal and seminal secretions and that supports other evidence that there could be sexual transmission. We are at the early stages of investigation and there is a lot more that we have to learn. We are doing a larger study that will be written up for publication.
International team of scientists finds evidence for sexual transmission.
Carmel, CA (PRWEB) January 25, 2014
A new study suggests that Lyme disease may be sexually transmitted. The study was presented at the annual Western Regional Meeting of the American Federation for Medical Research, and an abstract of the research was published in the January issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine.
Lyme disease is a tickborne infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a type of corkscrew-shaped bacteria known as a spirochete (pronounced spiro’keet). The Lyme spirochete resembles the agent of syphilis, long recognized as the epitome of sexually transmitted diseases. Last summer the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that Lyme disease is much more common than previously thought, with over 300,000 new cases diagnosed each year in the United States. That makes Lyme disease almost twice as common as breast cancer and six times more common than HIV/AIDS.
“Our findings will change the way Lyme disease is viewed by doctors and patients,” said Marianne Middelveen, lead author of the study presented in Carmel. “It explains why the disease is more common than one would think if only ticks were involved in transmission.”
The present study was a collaborative effort …