Lyme Disease General Information
Posted by Eldon Cook in Lyme Disease Help
Lyme disease is a transferable infectious disease caused by spirochetes of genus Borrelia burgdorferi.It is a typical natural foci transmissible disease confined to the forest landscapes of the temperate climatic zone. Infection of humans and domestic animals happens while contact with them infection tick and the bite of an infected tick.
Previously the signs of Lyme disease are widely spread in the U.S. and Canada. In recent years, common in European countries. In Russia, the tick-borne borreliosis natural foci detected from Kaliningrad in the west to Sakhalin in the east. It is considered highly endemic, what means permanent manifestation of the disease in certain areas, such as Leningrad, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kaliningrad, Perm, Tyumen region, as well as the Urals, West Siberian and Far Eastern regions of pasture tick-borne borreliosis.
The range of Lyme disease coincides with the area of tick-borne encephalitis, which creates the possibility of simultaneous infection with both these infections.The main carrier of the disease are different types of ticks, including Ixodes are widely distributed in Russia. Infection of ticks with borreliae takes place at the time of blood feeding infected animal. Over time, the agent may be in the intestines of the tick and mite during the second attack on the animal or person is transferred to a new owner. Deer – the only animal that is not susceptible to infection with Lyme disease tick bite. In this species revealed a natural resistance to Lyme disease.
Possible intrauterine infection, resulting in intrauterine fetal death. Borrelia transfer cases with milk have been identified.Due to the ability of parasites in the blood persist for a long time, there may be cases reinfection while blood transfusion. The parasite is not transmitted by contact from infected animals to man, but consider the possibility of contamination of the owner of a sick animal in an attack on the animal parasitic mite. There are cases of human Lyme disease due to the impact on the pathogen conjunctiva, which is likely in the crushing of ticks removed from dogs.
The main symptoms of Lyme disease is high fever, muscle pain, change in gait, lameness, swelling and tenderness of the joints, abscesses and nonsuppurative migratory arthritis, synovitis, and increased swelling of lymph nodes, and the first of these characteristics are observed in the limbs, closest to the tick bite and then spread more widely. Arthritis and lameness are considered the most characteristic clinical signs of Lyme disease of dogs. Typically attacks of arthritis, it may return after months or years, even after treatment. Pathological changes in the joints, histologically, were found even in dogs with minimal or no signs of lameness.
