posted
Can anyone post a link documenting that lice can carry and transmit lyme disease? I need something that I could take to a lawyer, something that would stand up in court.
Posts: 101 | From USA | Registered: Apr 2007
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
that's a new one to me, but keeping this up.
mom, i'd copy this to MEDICAL; you will get more help since most do not come to this forum!
hshbmom
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9478
posted
Can you do a PubMed search for borrelia and pediculosis (Lyme & lice infestation)?
Hopefully someone else will come along with an actual reference for you. I've seen borrelia documented in many types of insects and arachnids, including fleas and lice.
Of course a judge or physician may likely argue that just because they carry the bacteria, that doesn't mean they can transmit the disease.
Posts: 1672 | From AL/WV/OH | Registered: Jun 2006
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Melanie Reber
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Member # 3707
posted
Relapsing Fever or Borrelia recurrentis
Excretion of living Borrelia recurrentis in feces of infected human body lice.
Houhamdi L, Raoult D.
Unite des Rickettsies, Institut Federatif de Recherche 48, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Unite Mixte de Recherche 6020, Universite de la Mediterranee, Faculte de Medecine, Marseille, France.
Louse-borne relapsing fever (LBRF), caused by Borrelia recurrentis, is 1 of the most dangerous arthropod-borne diseases. Infection is thought to occur through louse crushing. Lice feces have not been shown to contain living borreliae. We infected 800 body lice by feeding them on a rabbit made spirochetemic by the injection of 2 x 106 borreliae. The life span of infected lice was not shortened. Once infected, lice remained infected for life but did not transmit borreliae to their progeny or to nurse rabbits. B. recurrentis infection was observed throughout lice and spread into hemolymph on day 5 after infection. We describe 2 unprecedented phenomena. In hemolymph, B. recurrentis formed clumps of aggregated borreliae. Using immunofluorescence assay, transmission electron microscopy, and culture, we detected borreliae excreted in lice feces beginning on day 14 after infection. We conclude that, similar to epidemic typhus and trench fever, transmission of LBRF may be caused by lice feces.
PMID: 15871124 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
...
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2000, p. 3561-3571, Vol. 38, No. 10 0095-1137/00/$04.00+0
Serodiagnosis of Louse-Borne Relapsing Fever with Glycerophosphodiester Phosphodiesterase (GlpQ) from Borrelia recurrentis
Stephen F. Porcella,1 Sandra J. Raffel,1 Merry E. Schrumpf,1 Martin E. Schriefer,2 David T. Dennis,2 and Tom G. Schwan1,*
Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana 59840,1 and Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado 805222
Received 20 March 2000/Returned for modification 2 June 2000/Accepted 28 July 2000
Human louse-borne relapsing fever occurs in sporadic outbreaks in central and eastern Africa that are characterized by significant morbidity and mortality. Isolates of the causative agent, Borrelia recurrentis, were obtained from the blood of four patients during a recent epidemic of the disease in southern Sudan. The glpQ gene, encoding glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase, from these isolates was sequenced and compared with the glpQ sequences obtained from other relapsing-fever spirochetes. Previously we showed that GlpQ of Borrelia hermsii is an immunogenic protein with utility as a serological test antigen for discriminating tick-borne relapsing fever from Lyme disease. In the present work, we cloned and expressed the glpQ gene from B. recurrentis and used recombinant GlpQ in serological tests. Acute- and convalescent-phase serum samples obtained from 42 patients with louse-borne relapsing fever were tested with an indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that used whole cells of B. recurrentis and with immunoblotting to whole-cell lysates of the spirochete and Escherichia coli producing recombinant GlpQ. The geometric mean titers of the acute- and convalescent-phase serum samples measured by IFA were 1:83 and 1:575, respectively. The immunoblot analysis identified a high level of reactivity and seroconversion to GlpQ, and the assay was more sensitive than the whole-cell IFA and ELISA using purified, recombinant histidine-tagged GlpQ. Serum antibodies to GlpQ and other antigens persisted for 27 years in one patient. We conclude that assessment of anti-GlpQ antibodies will allow serological confirmation of louse-borne relapsing fever and determination of disease prevalence.
Title [Louse-borne typhus potential and new technologies in prediction of epidemic louse-borne typhus outburst]
Source Vestn Ross Akad Med Nauk 2008; (7):25-30.
Abstract Features of louse-borne typhus in Russia in the middle of 20th century are considered. Study of the infection source, blood serum in patient after epidemic louse-borne typhus (ELBT) and agent (louse) was performed on territory with high morbidity of pediculosis and ELBT in the years of 2nd world war. New materials of seroimmunological examinations are represented. Priority data of lice morphology based on morphometrical data of lice, collected in Russia and world collection in Berlin are shown. Methods of ELBT prediction are given, special attention is paid to development of mathematic prognostic models based on new technologies.
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Melanie Reber
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Title Arthropod-Borne Diseases in Homeless.
Author(s) Brouqui P, Raoult D
Institution Unit� des rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, IFR 48, Facult� de m�decine, 27 bd, J Moulin, 13385 Marseille, cedex 5, France. e-mail: [email protected].
Source Ann N Y Acad Sci 2006 Oct.:223-235.
Abstract Homeless people are particularly exposed to ectoparasite. The living conditions and the crowded shelters provide ideal conditions for the spread of lice, fleas, ticks, and mites. Body lice have long been recognized as human parasites and although typically prevalent in rural communities in upland areas of countries close to the equator, it is now increasingly encountered in developed countries especially in homeless people or inner city economically deprived population. Fleas are widespread but are not adapted to a specific host and may occasionally bite humans. Most common fleas that parasite humans are the cat, the rat, and the human fleas, Ctenocephalides felis, Xenopsylla cheopis, and Pulex irritans, respectively.
Ticks belonging to the family Ixodidae, in particular, the genera Dermacentor, Rhipicephalus, and Ixodes, are frequent parasites in humans. Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis is a mite (Arachnida class) responsible for scabies. It is an obligate parasite of human skin. The hematophagic-biting mite, Liponyssoides sanguineus, is a mite of the rat, mouse, and other domestic rodents but can also bite humans. Finally, the incidence of skin disease secondary to infestation with the human bedbug, Cimex lectularius, has increased recently. Bacteria, such as Wolbacchia spp. have been detected in bedbug. The threat posed by the ectoparasite in homeless is not the ectoparasite themselves but the associated infectious diseases that they may transmit to humans.
Except for scabies all these ectoparasites are potential vectors for infectious agents. [b]Three louse-borne diseases are known at this time. Trench fever caused by Bartonella quintana (B. quintana), epidemic typhus caused by Rickettsia prowazekii, and relapsing fever caused by the spirochete Borrelia recurrentis.[b] Fleas transmit plague (Xenopsylla cheopis and Pulex irritans), murine typhus (Xenopsylla cheopis), flea-borne spotted rickettsiosis on account of the recently described species Rickettsia felis (C. felis), and occasionally cat scratch disease on account of Bartonella henselae (C. felis). The role of fleas as potential vector of B. quintana has recently been suggested. Among the hematophagic-biting mites, L. sanguineus, is responsible for the transmission of Rickettsia akari, the etiologic agent of rickettsialpox. Virtually, no data are available on tick-borne disease in this population.
This article will deal with epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of these ectoparasite and the infectious diseases they transmit to the homeless people.
...
Title Louse-borne bacterial pathogens in lice (Phthiraptera) of rodents and cattle from Egypt.
Author(s) Reeves WK, Szumlas DE, Moriarity JR, Loftis AD, Abbassy MM, Helmy IM, Dasch GA
Institution Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 1600 Clifton Rd. NE, MS G-13, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, USA. [email protected]
Source J Parasitol 2006 Apr; 92(2):313-8.
Abstract We collected 1,023 lice, representing 5 species, from rats and domestic cattle throughout 13 governorates in Egypt and tested these lice for Anaplasma marginale, Bartonella spp., Brucella spp., Borrelia recurrentis, Coxiella burnetii, Francisella tularensis, and Rickettsia spp. by PCR amplification and sequencing. Five different louse-borne bacterial agents were detected in lice from rodents or cattle, including "Bartonella rattimassiliensis", "B. phoceensis", and Bartonella sp. near Bartonella tribocorum, Coxiella burnetii, and Rickettsia typhi. More lice from governorates bordering the Mediterranean and Red Seas contained pathogens. Our data indicate that lice of urban and domestic animals harbor pathogenic or potentially pathogenic bacterial agents throughout Egypt.
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Melanie Reber
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Sorry...I couldn't find anything on Lice and Bb in particular. That does not mean it doesn't exist, I just can't put my hands on it.
Posts: 7052 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Thanks everyone. We're fighting for a child's health and need all the ammunition possible.
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