Lyme disease costs up to $1. 3 billion per year to treat, study finds

Date:
February 5, 2015
Source:
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Summary:
New research suggests that a prolonged illness associated with Lyme disease is more widespread and serious in some patients than previously understood.

Lyme disease, transmitted by a bite from a tick infected by the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, had long been considered easy to treat, usually requiring a single doctor's visit and a few weeks of antibiotics for most people.

But new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that a prolonged illness associated with the disease is more widespread and serious in some patients than previously understood. With an estimated 240,000 to 440,000 new cases of the tick-borne illness diagnosed every year, the researchers found that Lyme disease costs the U.S. health care system between $712 million and $1.3 billion a year -- or nearly $3,000 per patient on average -- in return doctor visits and testing, likely to investigate the cause of some patients' lingering symptoms of fatigue, musculoskeletal pain and memory problems. These visits come after patients have finished their original course of antibiotics.

More: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205095049.htm