Why are more people getting Lyme disease?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection passed on to humans by infected ticks. Symptoms can range from fatigue, joint pain and a circular shaped rash to facial paralysis and heart arrythmia.
According to a British Medical Journal (BMJ) global health review, Lyme disease has likely infected about one in 10 people across the globe.
Recently, pop star Justin Timberlake went public about contracting the condition.
If treated quickly, most people will recover but there are still issues around diagnosing and treating Lyme disease.
And globally, cases are on the rise. In this edition of The Inquiry, Charmaine Cozier explores what's behind the increase and hears about new tests and vaccines currently being developed.
Contributors: Dr Sally Mavin, clinical scientist and Director of the Scottish Lyme Disease and Tick-Borne Infections Reference Laboratory, Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, Scotland Dr Armin Alaedini, Chief Scientific Officer, Global Lyme Alliance Dr Gábor Földvári, research group leader, Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Evolution, Budapest, Hungary Dr Alessandra Luchini, Professor, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, USA
Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producers: Jill Collins and Emma Forde Researcher: Maeve Schaffer Technical producer: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Tammy Snow Editor: Tara McDermott
(Photo: Tweezers removing a forest tick from human body. Credit: rbkomar/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | Welcome to the inquiry from the BBC World Service. I'm Charmaine Cozier. |
| 0:10.6 | Each week, one question, four expert witnesses, and an answer. |
| 0:17.5 | July 2025, singers Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber have a lot in common besides |
| 0:24.0 | sharing a name. By the time they were teenagers, they were global superstars. Their music has |
| 0:30.5 | sold millions of albums and had billions of streams. Then Justin Timberlake posts a message on |
| 0:36.3 | Instagram, revealing another more personal connection. |
| 0:40.9 | He's living with the long-term effects of Lyme disease. |
| 0:44.6 | It's a bacterial infection spread to humans by ticks. |
| 0:48.8 | Justin Bieber shared his own diagnosis five years ago. |
| 0:52.4 | Since then, reported cases have risen in the US. It's a complicated |
| 0:56.7 | condition that scientists are still working to fully understand. So this week we're asking, |
| 1:03.0 | why are more people getting Lyme disease? Part 1, signs and symptoms. |
| 1:19.7 | Every time a celebrity announces that they've got Lyme disease, |
| 1:25.9 | we see the number of samples that we receive in the laboratory increase quite significantly. |
| 1:29.1 | And there's also been studies carried out looking at Google searches. Dr Sally Maven is a clinical scientist and director of the Scottish |
| 1:34.5 | Lyme disease and tick-borne infections reference lab at Regmore Hospital in Inverness. |
| 1:40.1 | When a celebrity announces they've got Lyme disease, the number of Google hits on Lyme disease pages increases quite significantly as well. |
| 1:47.9 | People have been bitten by ticks for centuries. |
| 1:50.9 | Lyme disease itself was first recognised, really, in the mid-1970s. |
| 1:57.7 | So it's quite an interesting story. |
| 2:00.3 | That story begins in the US state of Connecticut in a coastal town called Old Lyme. |
... |
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