The researchers conclude that “the worldwide spread of the disease is relatively large, but Lyme has not received adequate worldwide attention.”
The 14% of the population on Earth – or at least the one man in seven – has or had the Lyme disease or borreliosis, which is transmitted by ticks, according to a new international scientific study, which based its estimates on the presence of antibodies in the blood. Central and Western Europe, as well as East Asia, are the regions with the highest prevalence of the disease, which mainly affects men over the age of 50 in non-urban areas.
The researchers, who made the relevant publication (systematic review and meta-analysis) in the British medical journal “BMJ Global Health”, analyzed data from 137 surveys by 2021, which involved a total of 158,287 people. The presence of antibodies against the disease in the blood was estimated at 14.5%, a percentage higher than expected.
Borrelia bacterial infection, better known as Lyme disease, is the most common form of tick-borne disease. The main symptoms are swelling and redness at the site of the tick bite, while the infection can then spread to other tissues and organs of the human body, affecting the nervous system, joints, heart and skin.
The disease continues to spread internationally, but so far there has been no agreement among scientists as to how common it is worldwide or what the key risk factors are (whoever has been bitten by a tick in their life belongs to a high-risk group). The new study shows that the regions with the highest prevalence are Central Europe (21% of the population), Eastern Asia (16%) and Western Europe (13.5%), while the lowest prevalence is recorded in the Caribbean (2%), in South Asia (3%) and Oceania (5.5%).
The spread of the disease – based on the presence of antibodies in the population – was greater in the last decade 2010-2021 than in the previous 2001-2010. Possible explanations for this are the longer and warmer summers, the less rainfall, the increasingly frequent migrations of animals, the increasingly fragmented arable land and the longer human contact time with more and more pets.
The researchers conclude that “the worldwide spread of the disease is relatively large“But Lyme has not received the attention it deserves worldwide.”
