My niece, an avid hiker, went through this agony, undiagnosed, for about a year and a half before she found a doctor who recognized her symptoms.
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Lyme disease warrants more attention: group
Times Colonist; Richard Watts October 19, 2010 6:14 AM
Lyme disease, an illness spread by ticks, is widespread in B.C. but is being ignored by public health officials, patient advocates say.
David Cubberly, a former New Democrat MLA for Saanich South and municipal councillor for Saanich, said in a telephone interview yesterday that people are being kept in the dark.
"The public should be alerted to the fact that all of southern British Columbia is endemic for Lyme disease and that it's showing up in communities across B.C., and therefore they have to be cautious," said Cubberly, a director for the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation.
Lyme disease is caused by three species of bacteria transmitted to humans via ticks. Early symptoms may include fever, headache, fatigue and a characteristic circular rash shaped like a bull's-eye.
If diagnosed early, the disease is easily treated with antibiotics. If left untreated, it can become chronic, causing severe pain and arthritis in the joints and also harming the nervous system and the heart.
Patient advocate groups in Canada have complained that public health officials rely on passive surveillance of the disease. They say a pro-active approach is warranted.
For example, Cubberly and other Lyme disease patient advocates point to a recent survey of doctors that shows 148 physicians in B.C. treated a total of 221 patients in 2007 for the disease. That compares with the 13 cases officially acknowledged for that year by public health officials.
The survey was undertaken in 2008 by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to test whether doctors are aware of Lyme disease.
For that reason, Dr. Bonnie Henry, an epidemiologist with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said the survey in question cannot be used or cited as an indication of Lyme disease patient numbers.
For example, Henry said there is no way of knowing whether all 221 actually had Lyme disease. Some might simply have have had a tick bite and were treated to ward off the possibility of Lyme disease.
But the good news is that "we found out was that physicians are very knowledgeable about Lyme disease and they how to treat it," said Henry.
On the other hand, she said it was disappointing to find fewer than half of surveyed doctors knew it was a disease that is supposed to be reported to public health officials. "It is clearly under-reported."
Henry said the survey results are deserving of further analysis. Unfortunately, they were compiled last year, at a time when public health officials were scrambling to deal with the onset of H1N1 flu pandemic and the related vaccination campaign.
B.C. chief medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said the B.C. Centre for Disease Control regularly checks tick populations for signs of the Lyme disease bacteria.
He said about 0.4 per cent of ticks collected in B.C. test positive for the bacteria.
But chronic Lyme disease sufferer Gwen Barlee, 47, of Vancouver, said she believes public health officials are not taking the disease seriously enough.
What's needed, she argues, is an awareness campaign and research to pinpoint where the disease is emerging in B.C.
"I want to see those 221 cases mapped across the province," Barlee said.
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