{"id":3921,"date":"2023-06-20T17:18:03","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T22:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=3921"},"modified":"2023-06-20T18:41:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T23:41:20","slug":"researchers-are-working-on-at-home-tests-for-lyme-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/06\/20\/researchers-are-working-on-at-home-tests-for-lyme-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Are Working on At-Home Tests for Lyme Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Time<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there has been one silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it\u2019s been the rise of rapid self-tests, which provide results at home in minutes. Researchers are hard at work at developing similar tests for other diseases\u2014including Lyme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lyme disease is transmitted by the\u00a0black-legged (or deer) tick<\/a>\u00a0and infects\u00a0about 476,000 Americans each year<\/a>. The faster those people\u00a0can get treated with the antibiotics doxycycline or amoxicillin<\/a>, the better their chances of having a short, mild case of the disease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But despite the clear need, there\u2019s a problem when it comes to speed and ease of testing for the tickborne illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Lyme disease tests are currently done<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most tests are performed in a doctor\u2019s office and require a blood sample\u00a0to be run through two types of screening<\/a>. The first, called the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test, looks for the presence of antibodies to the Lyme-causing\u00a0Borrelia burgdorferi<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Borrelia mayonii<\/em>\u00a0bacteria<\/a>. Those antibodies\u00a0can take several weeks<\/a>\u00a0after a bite to rise to detectable levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the ELISA test is positive or inconclusive, a second test\u2014known as the western blot test\u2014is performed. The western blot uses electricity to split antibodies into individual proteins, which lab technicians scrutinize for the telltale pattern of Lyme antibodies. The western blot test is actually less sensitive<\/a> to antibodies than the ELISA test is (which is why doctors don\u2019t just start with it), but once the ELISA test detects the antibodies, the western blot does a better job of confirming their source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At-home test kits exist that allow people to collect a few drops of blood with a finger prick, and then send the sample to a lab, which runs the same tests and makes results available, on average, in three to five days. But it still takes weeks after a bite for antibodies to rise to detectable levels, giving the Lyme bacteria time to multiply and spread throughout the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time If there has been one silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, it\u2019s been the rise of rapid self-tests, which provide results at home in minutes. Researchers are hard at work at developing similar tests for other diseases\u2014including Lyme. Lyme disease is transmitted by the\u00a0black-legged (or deer) tick\u00a0and infects\u00a0about 476,000 Americans each year. The faster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Screenshot-2023-06-20-at-18.16.07.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3923,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3921\/revisions\/3923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}