Bronwyn Herbert reported this story on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 12:30:00
ELEANOR HALL: Scientists say that better tests would help to confirm whether Lyme disease exists in Australia.
The rare tick borne disease can be fatal to humans and last week a Sydney woman won a court case that enabled her to posthumously test her dead husband for the disease.
The New South Wales Health Department says there's no solid evidence that the disease exists in Australia. But the case has raised questions about whether Australia's testing procedures are adequate.
Bronwyn Herbert reports.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Lyme disease is a debilitating condition transmitted from animals to humans via tick bites.
Its symptoms are described as similar to syphilis - fevers and lesions and if left untreated leading to more chronic illness and even death.
In the northern hemisphere it's the most prevalent tick born disease. But in Australia debate still rages in the medical community as to whether it actually exists.
Doctor Stephen Graves is the director of microbiology at the Hunter Valley Pathology Service.
STEPHEN GRAVES: Two schools of thought on this. One group think that it does exist because there have been patients with illnesses that are clinically consistent with Lyme disease and another school of thought is that it doesn't exist here because there's been no evidence of the organism being detected in ticks and quite a few ticks have been examined.
BRONWYN HERBERT: The Health Department of New South Wales says there's no solid evidence that the disease exists here.
STEPHEN GRAVES: That's correct. To have solid evidence you need to have not just patients presenting with an illness but you need to isolate the micro-organism.
So for example until such time as we've isolated Borrelia Burgdorferi - which is the name of the bacteria causing Lyme disease - until we've actually isolated it from a patient in Australia who's never been out of Australia or we've isolated it from a tick that's an endemic tick in Australia - until such times as that occurs there's going to be a question mark about the presence of the disease in Australia.
BRONWYN HERBERT: How's the disease tested?
STEPHEN GRAVES: Well there's several ways. The best way is to actually grow the micro-organism. So you actually take a sample whether it's from a patient or a tick and you put it into culture and you actually grow the micro-organism.
Now Doctor Hudson did this on one patient a few years ago and we thought he'd clarified the issue once and for all, but in fact it turned out that the patient had been to Europe and they could well have been infected in Europe.
BRONWYN HERBERT: The Supreme Court in New South Wales has given a woman permission to get the body of her husband autopsied to determine if he died from Lyme disease.
The woman claimed her husband was bitten by a tick three years ago while filming a television series in Sydney bushland.
The man tested negative to Lyme disease in Australia but further tests performed in Germany and the US proved positive.
Doctor Graves says a posthumous test would be very difficult.
STEPHEN GRAVES: If the person's dead, it's going to be very, very hard to test for the presence of an organism and those assays (phonetic), they are available but they're not highly developed Lyme disease in Australia, so it probably... It may be possible but a laboratory in the United States or somewhere in Europe would be more skilled at doing this test.
But if a disease is not widespread in a country then the testing methodologies and the testing skills are not as well developed.
BRONWYN HERBERT: So is this a call to actually improve the testing methodology for this disease?
I suppose in a background sort of way, yes, because we really do need to know whether this disease occurs here on not. But there are tests for Lyme disease in Australia but it's just that we don't use them very often.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Doctor Jeremy McAnulty is a director with the New South Wales Department of Health.
He says Lyme disease is not currently a threat in Australia.
JEREMY MCANULTY: We always have an open mind. We'll always be looking out to see if there is evidence emerging of Lyme disease but certainly people should talk to their doctor about their symptoms and their doctor needs to make a clinical decision about whether or not the person needs to be tested for and treated for Lyme disease.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Do you think the testing methods for Lyme disease here in Australia are adequate?
JEREMY MCANULTY: Look they do seem to be and again we need to put in context who needs to be tested and when and the doctor’s decision and advice about that. But there is a specialist laboratory at Westmead that’s very expert in the range of tests that need to be done and can be done and they of course keep in contact with the experts around the world.
ELEANOR HALL: Doctor Jeremy McAnulty is the Director of Health Protection with New South Wales Health. He was speaking to Bronwyn Herbert."
Quoted form website: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2958843.htm
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