Lyme disease will be completely eradicated? Scientists have made a breakthrough discovery. It has turned out that an agent that has been known for 68 years may be effective. It is an antibiotic called hygromycin A.
Chronic Lyme disease is very difficult to treat. Treatment weakens the immune system and long-term symptoms of the disease can include tick-borne encephalitis, eating disorders (which can lead to anorexia), psychosis, impaired consciousness, visual disturbances, dementia, delirium and seizures. Treatment involves prolonged administration of antibiotics and this is not always effective.
- Treatment can take years. Sometimes there is no complete recovery at all. Improper treatment of Lyme disease also happens. Either patients are given the wrong antibiotics, or they are given too briefly. The patient may get better after one series, but this does not mean the end of the disease, which continues to develop in secret," said doctor Janusz Kaliszczak, epidemiologist, infectious disease specialist.
Not surprisingly, scientists have long been searching for a drug to prevent the progression of acute Lyme disease to chronic Lyme disease. And it looks like a light at the end of the tunnel has appeared. It was seen by Kim Lewis, a professor of biology at Northeastern University in Boston.
- We suspect that our discovery may prevent chronic Lyme disease," says Lewis. His team's findings are reported in the journal Cell.
What is the breakthrough?
With Lyme disease, doctors usually prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics. Sometimes this results in them killing a wide variety of bacteria, including the beneficial ones found in the gut, but not the ones causing the disease. Lyme disease is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi occurring in the form of a spirochete or cyst.
Prof Lewis noted in earlier studies that patients with long-term symptoms of Lyme disease often have a different gut microbiome than healthy individuals. He therefore hypothesised that broad-spectrum antibiotics such as doxycycline or amoxicillin might favour long-term Lyme disease.
It turned out that an antibiotic already known since 1953 could be effective. - hygromycin A. However, it was abandoned as ineffective. - Since then, no one has really bothered with the compound because it is ineffective against common bacteria, says Lewis. - 'We found that it was actually very weak against common pathogens, but extremely strong against spirochetes,' adds the biologist.
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