How is Lyme Disease Transmitted?
Lyme disease is a tick-borne infection caused by a bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi. Lyme disease is most often transmitted by black-legged tick bites and, in recent studies, has also been found in mosquitos.
Lyme Disease Transmission by Ticks
The bite of a tick transmits Lyme disease, and the disease is prevalent across the United States and throughout the world. Ticks know no borders and respect no boundaries.
A patient's county of residence does not accurately reflect his or her Lyme disease risk because people travel, pets travel, and ticks travel. This creates a dynamic situation with many opportunities for exposure to Lyme disease for each individual.
The bite of a black-legged or deer tick most commonly spreads Lyme Disease. These tiny ticks and tick bites are tiny and difficult to see.
The bite of a tick transmits Lyme disease, and the disease is prevalent across the United States and throughout the world. Ticks know no borders and respect no boundaries. A patient's county of residence does not accurately reflect his or her Lyme disease risk because people travel, pets travel, and ticks travel. This creates a dynamic situation with many opportunities for exposure to Lyme disease for each individual.
Black-legged ticks, also known as deer ticks, are most prevalent in the Northeast United States but have been found in all 50 states and Canada. These ticks live in wooded and grassy areas. Cases of Lyme disease are on the rise in recent years showing reported cases nearly doubling since 2014.
As we mentioned above, when it comes to the transmission of Lyme disease, ticks are not necessarily flying bug syringes that suck Borrelia from one organism and then simply inject it into another. The process, of course, is a little more complicated as it is the interactions between two living things, the tick, and Borrelia, that play a crucial role in the transmission of the infection.
While Borrelia resides in the tick’s gut, it produces a protein that enables the Borrelia to persist in the tick for long periods. The protein aids its survival until the tick feeds again. Then, when the tick begins to feed again, the spirochete decreases its production of that protein and focuses on producing a new protein, which allows the spirochete to move to the tick’s salivary gland where it can then be transmitted to the new host by way of the tick’s saliva.
The production and function of the two proteins that the Borrelia spirochete produces in a tick are integral to the Borrelia’s survival. Still, it also can enhance and utilize a protein already in the tick that protects not only the tick but the spirochete as well from any attacks by the host’s immune system.
Therefore, Borrelia is dependent on the tick’s protein, Salp15, to infect the host as a Lyme disease agent. In addition to the Salp15 protein, the Borrelia also needs the extended time that a tick spends feeding, as it often feeds for multiple days at a time. The spirochetes often require such an extended amount of time for those interactions to occur.
Mosquitoes Carry Lyme Disease
When people typically think about Lyme disease, they associate it with ticks – deer ticks, to be exact. While Lyme has historically been considered a tick-borne disease, more recent scientists and researchers have started to claim that mosquitoes can also infect people with Lyme disease.
Contrarily, Borrelia is much less equipped for survival in mosquitoes. So, despite being found to exist in mosquito guts, and even saliva, people question whether it can survive long enough in the mosquito without the support from the proteins found in ticks.
Additionally, mosquitoes take only a few minutes, sometimes even seconds, to feed, whereas ticks take days. Such a short amount of time reduces the spirochetes’ ability to produce whatever equipment they might need to be viable as infectors of Lyme disease in the same way as they are with ticks.
When people typically think about Lyme disease, they associate it with ticks – deer ticks, to be exact. While Lyme has historically been considered a tick-borne disease, more recent scientists and researchers have started to claim that mosquitoes can also infect people with Lyme disease.
Of course, like most ground-breaking science, the claims have been met with controversy in the academic realm of the Lyme disease discussion. Despite many scientific claims showing that mosquitoes can carry Borrelia in their gut and indicating the possibility that mosquitoes can transmit an infection to humans, many mainstream disease centers still hold otherwise.
For instance, even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website says that “[t]here is no credible evidence that Lyme disease can be transmitted through air, food, water, or from the bites of mosquitoes, flies, fleas, or lice.”
Understanding the controversy over whether mosquitoes can infect people with Lyme disease can be very confusing, especially since scientists have already determined that mosquitoes can carry the Borrelia bacteria. The issue, however, isn’t quite whether mosquitoes have been found to carry Borrelia. Instead, the question is whether Borrelia and mosquitoes can interact with one another in a way that enables the Borrelia to be transmitted from mosquito to human.
Transmitting the Lyme infection from a tick to a person is not necessarily a matter of the tick sucking Borrelia from one person and injecting it into another. Rather, certain relations, processes, and systems inside the tick and Borrelia enable it to persist for a long enough time to become strong enough to be transmitted to a person.
Understanding how the Lyme disease organism, Borrelia, works in a tick is crucial to understanding the controversy over mosquitoes and Lyme disease.
Such concerns have made mainstream disease centers deny that mosquitoes have the capacity to be significant vectors of Lyme disease infections. However, recent studies have provided evidence to combat any such concerns.
Specifically, one study performed by individuals from Goethe-University, Senckenberg Museum of Natural History Gorlitz, and the University of Frankfurt has found that mosquitoes might have the equipment, after all, to enable Borrelia spirochetes the ability to survive for the duration necessary to be viable vectors of Lyme disease.
Sexually Transmitted
A relative of the STD Syphillis, our research has shown Lyme Spirochetes can be transmitted by sexual intercourse.
How Is Lyme Disease Transmitted?
Lyme Disease is most commonly spread by the bite from a blacklegged or deer tick. These tiny ticks and tick bites are very small and difficult to see.
A relative of the STD Syphillis, our research has shown Lyme Spirochetes can be transmitted by sexual intercourse.
A relative of the STD Syphillis, our research has shown Lyme Spirochetes can be transmitted by sexual intercourse.