Lyme Disease Quadruples – Blame It On Climate Change!

By Paul Homewood  

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11924482/Lyme-disease-cases-have-quadrupled.html

 

Something else to blame on climate change!

The Telegraph reports:

 

Soaring numbers of people are suffering from the bacterial infection Lyme disease, according to new figures.

The number of confirmed cases has quadrupled in just 12 years, NHS laboratory reports disclose, with more 1,100 people diagnosed in 2013, the most recent year for which numbers are available.

Experts believe the increasing incidence of the condition, which can cause neurological damage and crushing fatigue, is down to factors including:

• increasing numbers of housing developments in rural areas
• changes in Britain’s climate, with warmer winters prolonging the lives of ticks which host the bacteria
• immigration from countries in central and eastern Europe where the infection is more common
• The bacteria is carried by infected ticks which are usually found in woodlands.

Laboratory reports collected by PHE show the number of cases confirmed by blood test has quadrupled since 2001, to 1,112 cases in 2013. However, PHE estimates the true number of new cases each year is around 3,000.

The former head of the National Lyme Disease testing Service suggests each confirmed case should be multiplied by 10, meaning more than 11,000 cases a year.

Tests for the infection are not always reliable, and some patients are treated without ever being tested. Diagnosed cases of Lyme disease can be treated with antibiotics, but if left untreated neurological problems and joint pain can develop months or even years later.

There are five strains of the disease, three of which are responsible for most of the Lyme disease in Europe.

One strain of the disease causes most of the cases in America, where there were 20,000 cases reported last year. The number of areas reporting cases has increased by 320 per cent in the last 15 years.

In recent years, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia have all reported high levels of the infection.

Meanwhile, many GPs in Britain remain ignorant of the disease, charities and specialists say, meaning many sufferers are left to deteriorate for years.

Many sufferers who have had negative NHS tests say they have been found to be positive of the disease, after going to private firms for checks, often abroad.

Alison Larnder, 34, a professional singer who trained at The Royal Academy of Music, was diagnosed with Lyme disease in February, after flying to Norway for private tests, after three NHS tests were negative.

She says she became ill last year after she believes she was bitten by a tick at an Oxfordshire music festival.

“I was very ill straight away,” she said. “And then I got a bit better and then gradually got very lethargic, very tired, pain and fatigue all over my body. It went on for a while. It didn’t occur to me that the creature could be the root cause.

“I kept going back to my GP she kept doing tests, but could not diagnose me with anything."

In February she went to Norway for tests which found positive for the disease after the NHS ones came back negative.”

 

The BS detector began to light up just a few lines in!

Even now, as the report states, many negative tests are being returned, and some people are forced to go abroad for private tests. How many people ten or twenty years ago even knew about Lyme disease, or bothered to go to a doctor, never mind have blood samples taken? And those who did go to a doctor would probably just have been given antibiotics and sent home.

Quite simply, we have absolutely no evidence at all that there are more cases now than previously, just because more are reported.

 

But let’s move on to this cracker!

In recent years, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia have all reported high levels of the infection.

 

Now, if my schoolboy geography was right, winter temperatures in Eastern Europe are usually much lower than in England; Good King Wencelas and all that. For instance, Prague is regularly below freezing in January, and on average 9C colder than London.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague#Climate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate

 

 

It appears the ticks out in Czechoslovakia must wrap up warm in winter!

 

 

Meanwhile, perhaps the “experts” would like to tell us where these “warmer winters caused by climate change” have been hiding?

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly