ILADS 2024: Moving the needle on tick borne disease
Every year more Canadian health care practitioners are realizing the importance of tick borne and other chronic infections and more are attending conferences such as ILADS.
In early November I represented CanLyme at the 25th annual ILADS scientific conference in San Antonio, Texas. It began the day after the US election but the buzz was about tick borne infections, rather than politics.
ILADS – the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society – is a nonprofit, international, multidisciplinary medical society dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme and other complex inflammatory diseases.
The annual conference is attended by hundreds of practitioners, researchers, and scientists from around the world including 16 CanadianMDs, Nurse practitioners and naturopathic doctors. CanLyme was able to provide grants to cover the cost of meeting registration for many of the attendees.
The program included basic science talks where we learned about the role of extracellular DNA in the formation of bacterial biofilms, the importance of biobanking to advance Lyme research and about how understanding the intricacies of skin immunity may be the key to novel host-directed therapies. There were many talks on diagnostics including looking at carbohydrate molecules attached to antibodies, specific bacterial phages and immunoblots with vastly improved sensitivity over the standard two-tiered tests. There were talks on Mast cell activation syndrome, Lyme carditis, vision problems and mental health manifestations of Lyme and other tick-borne infections.
Every year more Canadian health care practitioners are realizing the importance of tick borne and other chronic infections and more are attending conferences such as ILADS. This year the Canadian Practitioners had an opportunity not only to be updated on the latest science, diagnostics and therapies, but also to network with each other and plan how to stay connected and exchange information back at home.
It was a pleasure to see the dedication, knowledge and compassion of this wonderful group of people – a group that will only grow as the problem of tick-borne diseases in Canada increases.