October 18, 2016.
As the government launches a comprehensive plan to fight Lyme disease this year, a court case could shed new light on current screening methods for this tick-borne disease. In this case, patients have filed a complaint against a manufacturer of tests they believe to be unreliable.
A loophole in the diagnosis of Lyme disease
Lyme disease is in the spotlight. A group of patients announced that they would assign the French pharmaceutical company BioMérieux, manufacturer of biological tests supposed to detect the disease transmitted by ticks, due to a malfunction of these same tests.
Grouped within a defense group called “Lymaction”, the plaintiffs are said to be around 500 to date and want, through this legal action, ” legal and judicial recognition of the unreliability of serodiagnostic tests used in the detection of Lyme disease », They explain. The offending test is known as Elisa. It allows, thanks to a blood sample, to search for the antibodies that act against the Borrelia bacteria., the cause of Lyme disease.
The BioMérieux laboratory affirms that its tests comply with the regulations
This is not the first time that the effectiveness of this test has been called into question.. In 2014, the High Council for Public Health estimated that “ the number of reagents meeting the recommendations mentioned in terms of sensitivity and specificity is 13/33 for screening reagents and 9/13 for confirmation reagents “.
However, faced with the threat, the French laboratory defends itself, in a press release, by affirming that these tests ” have always been and today comply with European and American regulations. They respond to recommendations from several expert consensus conferences at national, European and international levels. Like the other Elisa tests available in France for the diagnosis of Lyme disease, these tests are prescribed by the doctor in first intention, in accordance with the recommendations of national and international scientific experts. “.
Read also: Tick bites: what are the symptoms of Lyme disease?
