484 - Lyme Disease: Diagnosis, Prevention, and How Long COVID is Helping to Advance Awareness and Research for Chronic Lyme
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
First identified 50 years ago, Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness endemic to many parts of the U.S. While the acute infection can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed in time, 10-20% of people still go on to experience persistent symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and pain. Lyme expert John Aucott talks with Stephanie Desmon about how to prevent Lyme disease, what we know about chronic Lyme, and how long COVID is helping to draw attention to it and other diseases like chronic fatigue.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:12.0 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:17.0 | and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore. |
| 0:19.7 | Our goal is to bring evidence and experience |
| 0:22.3 | to illuminate critical public health issues. |
| 0:25.5 | If you have questions or ideas for us, |
| 0:27.3 | please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu. |
| 0:31.5 | That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:36.7 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith Rogers, producer of Public Health On Call. for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:41.0 | Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith Rogers, producer of public health on call. |
| 0:47.0 | Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Dr. John O'Cott, a Lyme disease expert at Johns Hopkins, |
| 0:53.2 | about how to protect yourself from the tick-borne illness, how 10 to 20% of those who come down with Lyme experience persistent symptoms long beyond the normal course of disease, |
| 0:58.0 | and how the similarity to those who experience long COVID could lead to new treatments for both. Let's listen. |
| 1:05.9 | John O'Cott, thanks so much for joining me. Great to be here. So today we're going to talk about Lyme disease. |
| 1:14.0 | And I want to start easy. |
| 1:15.4 | So I know that Lyme was first diagnosed almost 50 years ago. |
| 1:20.2 | What is it? |
| 1:21.8 | So Lyme disease is an infectious disease. |
| 1:24.4 | It's caused by a bacteria. |
| 1:26.8 | But the unique thing is the way the bacteria |
| 1:28.9 | gets into the human body is through the bite of a tick. So it's what's called a vector-borne |
| 1:33.4 | or tick-borne infectious disease. And I guess people want to know sort of how to avoid it. |
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