A technology backed by Bill Gates may revolutionize diagnostics for Lyme disease
Diana Pryor, CNBC news associate February 7th, 2017
While the medical and health community is putting a spotlight on diseases like Zika, Ebola and tuberculosis, another disease, transmitted by ticks, is getting little notice: Lyme disease.
The ticks that carry Lyme disease are spreading rapidly across the U.S. and are now located in nearly half of the country. The CDC estimates that 300,000 Americans are infected with Lyme disease. But the number of sufferers may be much higher, some Lyme disease experts believe. About 2.8 million have been diagnosed and a whopping 1.55 million are suffering lingering effects from the disease, also known as chronic Lyme disease or Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, according to Dorothy Kupcha Leland, vice president for education and outreach for LymeDisease.org
I have my doubts. Urine antigen testing might not work for people whose immune systems are so crippled by the infection that they do not produce the antigen…