http://www.carolinelucas.com/blog/tackling-lyme-disease-and-tick-borne-diseases-in-sussex.html
Tackling Lyme disease and tick-borne diseases in Sussex
Today campaigners seeking to highlight the lack of recognition, diagnosis, testing and treatment for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases will be gathering outside the Department of Health.
Although I am unable to join them, I want to offer my support as this is an issue that constituents have raised with me in the past and which I have taken up with Ministers.
Sussex Downs is a hot spot for Lyme disease - the Health Protection Agency says cases are on the rise and areas such as the South Downs and South Downs and parts of West Sussex are particularly at risk.
Therefore we need to ensure that doctors are being trained to spot the symptoms.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection usually transmitted by the bite of an infected tick, no bigger than the size of a poppy seed.
Official estimates put the number of new cases in the UK at 3,000 a year, but campaigners think the actual number could be much higher.
If left untreated, Lyme disease can have devastating symptoms and, even if its diagnosed accurately, many doctors believe it cannot be treated so patients can deteriorate rapidly and even die.
As well as training doctors, I have joined campaigners in calling for Lyme Borreliosis to be made a notifiable disease.
Requiring cases to be reported to the Government is one way of ensuring the disease is properly monitored and appropriate early warning systems put in place for potential outbreaks.
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