How many people are affected annually by Lyme disease?

Question

I am interested in knowing how many people are diagnosed with lyme disease on average annually both around the world and in North America.
Any good medical or authoritative links would be appreciated

Thanks!

Answer 1

The CDC criteria for diagnosis is actually far too exclusive to actually paint an accurate picture of how many Lyme disease cases there are each year. Only a small percentage of LD cases present with the classic erythema migrans rash that is the hallmark symptom of Lyme disease and the CDC only records cases that had this characteristic rash.

So to sum things up, there is actually no way of telling how prevalent Lyme disease actually is because of the strict reporting criteria and the fact that many cases of LD go undiagnosed.

Answer 2

US Lyme disease statistics can be found in the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report(MMWR) available online at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/summary.html The most recent data are from 2004.
You can find more statistics and info about Lyme disease at the American Lyme Disease Foundation website at http://www.aldf.com/ .The statistics from this website come from the CDC.

You may find searching the Public Health Agency of Canada helpful in finding Canadian statistics. http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/new_e.html

You can also search official statistics from around the world at the following: http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/

Hope this is helpful.
Bill

Answer 3

These links may have the information that you seek:-

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/
dvbid/lyme/ld_statistics.htm

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi
/content/full/291/23/2810

However, they are not of recent origin,
Hope it helps
Matador 89