This article on Lyme disease and Babesiosis was just published in PLoS ONE

Dr. Richard Horowitz

This article on Lyme disease and Babesiosis was just published in PLoS ONE. Dr Peter Krause and a team of researchers demonstrated in the laboratory that the frequency of Babesia microti infected ticks is higher when fed on white footed mice that are co-infected with both Lyme and Babesia, than on mice just infected with B. microti alone.This article follows recent scientific observations published by Dr Rick Ostfeld earlier this year in PLoS ONE, that the rate of co-infection with Babesiosis and Lyme is higher than expected in small mammals (http://www.plosone.org/…/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pon…). These two articles confirm what I have been seeing in clinical practice for almost two decades: Babesiosis is rising, and is a common co-infection seen in my chronically ill patients. Once Babesia is adequately treated, many patients who have failed classical Lyme treatments will clinically improve. These articles however do not address the rising rates of other strains of Babesia, such as Babesia duncani/WA-1, that I have been finding in patients coming to me from the east coast, from Florida all the way to Maine. When I recently met with Dr Ben Beard from the CDC, I explained that I had been finding positive Babesia duncani/WA-1 titers in my patients, using laboratories such as Quest and LabCorp, when the Babesia microti titers were negative. These patients responded well to anti-malarial therapies, and we would have missed this other Babesia infection, had I had not cast a larger net for other Babesia species. I let Dr Beard know that I would be happy to work together for the benefit of our Lyme community, and encouraged the CDC to start monitoring for other strains of Babesia. Babesia can be deadly in the very young and elderly whom are immunosuppressed; it can also be transmitted from mother to fetus, and Babesia has now found its way into the blood supply. We need to be paying much more attention to Babesiosis. A comprehensive review of Babesia can be found in my book "Why Can't I Get Better?" in chapter five: Lyme and Other Co-infections.

http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0115494&representation=PDF