What is lyme disease?
Lyme borreliosis is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. It is classified as an emerging disease in North America. The main vector for Lyme disease, Ixodes scapularis, is a black-legged tick. The highly efficient reservoir host for the disease is the white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus, and its high efficiency is due its high susceptibility to B. burgdorferi and therefore, transmitting the disease to uninfected ticks (Simon, 2014).
Reported cases of Lyme disease in the United States for 2013, CDC
symptoms
skin lesions
"bull's-eye" rash
fever
headache
chills
muscle pain
if untreated, can cause complications:
loss of muscle tone on one or both side of the face
joint pain
swelling
arthritis
Treatments
antibiotics including amoxicillin, cefuroxime axetil, doxycycline
Post-Treatment Lyme Disease syndrome (have persistent or recurrent symptoms) is possible and more research is being done to find treatment.
“...the white-footed mouse is currently expanding its range poleward, presumably in response to milder winters. The black-legged tick is also expanding its geographic range northward, tracking climate warming over the last few decades.”