A yet-to-be-named illness that causes the same symptoms and is spread by the same tick as Lyme disease was discovered in the U.K. However, unlike Lyme disease, this new illness showed more resistance against antibiotics, which alarmed doctors and scientists, according to The Telegraph.
Although this is the first time Borrelia miyamotoi, the bacterium that causes the disease, was reported in the U.K., it has been reported previously in the U.S. where it was found to infect 18 people in 2013. However, it was only recently that the potential health risks associated with the bacterium were identified.
The detection of the disease was reported in a study published last year in Epidemiology & Infection. The study, which has caught mainstream attention, investigated 954 Ixodes ricinus ticks from seven regions in southern England and found three of them positive for B. miyamotoi.
"We know this new disease, caused by the recently identified bacteria Borrelia miyamotoi, is in the U.K. To date it has only been found in a handful of ticks, but it will sound alarm bells," Stella Huyshe-Shires, Lyme Disease Action chair of trustees, told The Telegraph.
The unnamed tick-borne disease causes fever, chills, body aches, headaches, fatigue and joint pain. Huyshe-Shires said because the symptoms of the disease are similar to that of Lyme disease, there could be some confusion in its diagnosis. The relapsing fever associated with it could also be mistaken as a symptom of flu, particularly because the disease, unlike Lyme disease, does not causes rashes.
"The difficulty about this bacterium is that it causes a relapsing fever so [it] can be misdiagnosed as flu, or other viral infections, and early treatment with antibiotics not given," Huyshe-Shires said. "Patients who were not diagnosed and not treated appropriately run the risk of more serious consequences, as can happen with Lyme disease."
There is little known so far about B. miyamotoi and its specific route of transmission to humans except that it is carried by I. ricinus ticks. It was first discovered in Japan in 1995 and has appeared in North America and Europe. The first human cases of the disease were reported in Russia in 2011, in which 46 patients contracted the disease, according to a study published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
