How many are in France suffering from Lyme disease, 30,000, 40,000? This broad estimate alone proves the medical vagueness in which patients evolve. Imprecise screening test, unsuitable duration of treatment, last September, Marisol Touraine presented measures to put an end to therapeutic errors and the disbelief of part of the medical profession in the face of this complex disease and diffuse contours. However, it can lead to serious neurological and joint complications.
This awareness is all the more important as, in the field of research, major advances are still awaited.
But some hope might come from a simple azithromycin ointment. Applied for three days, 72 hours at the latest after a tick bite, it would prevent the disease from developing, reports the daily 20 minutes.
Published in the British magazine The Lancet Infectious Diseases, this work was conducted by the University of Vienna on 1,000 patients. “None of them developed Lyme borreliosis,” summarizes the coordinator of this international research, Bernd Jilma. At the same time, seven infections occurred in the group treated with a placebo.
But, specify the authors, “the trial had to be stopped prematurely because our analyzes showed that, 8 weeks after the application of the ointment on the erythema, there was no significant difference between the two groups” . Clearly, the preventive effect of azithromycin ointment is not demonstrated.
With 200,000 new cases per year, Europe is particularly affected by the management of the disease, which one of the great French specialists, Professor Christian Perronne, describes in a forthcoming book (1) as a “world scandal , one of the most staggering in the history of medicine”.
(1) The Truth About Lyme Disease, ed. Odile Jacob, in bookstores on January 4, 2017
Find our supplement dedicated to Lyme disease:
