Queen’s U group leads new $4M Lyme disease study
Queen’s University researchers are now on the front lines of the battle against Lyme disease. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the federal government announced a $4-million investment in the Pan-Canadian Research Network on Lyme disease to address gaps in the approach to prevention, control, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. The network will bring together scientists, clinicians and patients to look into the issue of Lyme disease, which is becoming more prevalent due to climate change, a news release from Queen’s University said. It’s led by Dr. Kieran Moore, Queen’s professor of emergency and family medicine and the region’s medical officer of health. Also on the team is Dr. Richard Resnick, dean of health sciences at Queen’s who has established a multidisciplinary team to tackle the disease. Lyme disease is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria transmitted to people through a bite of infected blacklegged ticks. Symptoms of Lyme disease can vary, but most people experience an expanding red rash at the site of the tick bite, fever, chills and flu-like symptoms, while others may have more serious symptoms, such as heart, joint and neurological disorders. If improperly diagnosed, people can suffer lifelong effects from the disease. Moore said data will be collected from patients in hot spots for tick bites and Lyme disease in Canada, including southeastern Ontario, the south shore of Nova Scotia, the south shore of the St. Lawrence River near Sherbrooke, Que., and in Manitoba. “So it’s a multipronged approach to recruit patients across Canada to increase our knowledge of the natural progression of this disease and how it’s resolved, as well as improved diagnostics,” Moore said. The network will build on Canada’s ongoing efforts to tackle the illness through surveillance, research, sharing of best practices, laboratory diagnostics and testing, prevention education, and public education and awareness. “We want to follow patients who get Lyme disease, from their initial diagnosis all the way through for the first two years after their diagnosis and treatment. We want to look for any complications or failure in the treatment.” Moore hopes people will give researchers biologic samples such as their blood, urine and scrapes of skin around the edge of a tick bite rash, which will help with their research. “By doing that, we’re going to be able to detect, for the first time in Canada, what are the circulating strains of Lyme disease in humans and is there a change in the severity of the strains between what’s in the United States and Canada?” Moore said. He hopes the tests they will be sensitive enough to pick up the specific Canadian strains. He hopes that between 500 and 1,000 people bitten by ticks will take part in the research over the next four years. The program may start next April. Moore said the department of emergency medicine, department of family medicine and the infectious disease team at Queen’s University will help recruit patients for the research. They will also put out public messages about the study. “It’s a benefit to the patient because we’ll follow them closely to make sure their symptoms are resolved and the patient will be helping the community to understand this disease,” he said. The goal for the research is to improve the diagnostic and treatment of the disease and also to improve education for the public and health-care providers on the disease, and to look at how to reduce the risk of getting Lyme disease out in the environment. “Are there methods that we can create in our environment that we can reduce the presence of ticks?” Moore said.