According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lyme disease cases are growing in the United States, which released a new report showing annual cases are 10 times higher than what they were reported in 2018.
Some 476,000 people are now being diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year. A fraction of that — 48,000 — were reported in 2018. In response, the CDC has published a new dashboard to help researchers collect real-time data, committing to updating information on emergency department visits for tick bites by time, region, age, and sex on a weekly, rather than annual, basis.
“This new data showing that Lyme disease remains vastly under-reported by a factor of 10 underscores the fact that tick-borne illnesses are a serious and growing public health threat,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said. “As the authors of the Kay Hagan Tick Act that created a national strategy to fight tick-borne diseases, Senator Smith and I pushed for the release of this powerful tool to assist researchers working to track and eradicate Lyme disease. Now that we have a clearer picture of the challenge that we are up against, we are better positioned to protect Americans’ health.”
Together with U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), Collins pushed for this updated data from the CDC through the Kay Hagan Tick Act, which became law in December 2019. That law also pushes better research, prevention, diagnostics, and treatment options for tick-borne diseases. Today, Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease according to the CDC, as well as the most common vector-borne disease.
“This report confirms that Lyme disease is a serious and growing public health problem in the United States,” said Senator Smith. “Now that we have this data, it’s incumbent on us to advance the national strategy outlined in the Kay Hagan Tick Act. Such prevention and treatment efforts will help curb the spread of tick-borne diseases so that Americans can enjoy spending time outside safely.”
Cases of tick-borne diseases have ratcheted upwards since the CDC first began tracking them in 1991. In Maine and Minnesota, respectively, there were 1,400 confirmed cases and 950 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2018 alone.