What You Will Learn!
- Recognize the main signs and symptoms of Lyme disease
- Follow instructions and steps for Western Blot, ELISA and IFA techniques
- Describe the life cycle of the tick
- Describe the lab tests involved in detecting Lyme Disease
Description
This Course is focused on Lyme disease, that is second most common vector-borne disease in the US, the first being West Nile Virus disease. In the Course, you will have an understanding of the importance of studying Lyme disease and a background knowledge of how the first cases of the disease were detected in Lyme, Connecticut.
The Course content also involves description of the three clinical manifestations of the disease, of which the "bull's eye" rash is typically found in quite a few patients at early stages and Lyme arthritis is most commonly encountered at a later stage of the disease. Since it is a tick-borne bacterial infection, the course also mentions the tick, the tick life cycle and the bacteria, along with the changes that occur on the bacterial surface as it is transmitted from tick to humans (or other hosts) and vice-versa.
Being a spirochete, which is a unique Gram-negative bacteria, a description of Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease, is also provided. Apart from clinical diagnosis, a laboratory diagnosis, according to CDC with step-by-step procedures for ELISA, IFA and Western Blot are provided.
In the Course, there is also explanation of the antibiotics of choice for treatment and cases of lingering clinical manifestations in spite of a complete therapy. At the very end, the main prevention methods available, along with the challenges of vaccination due to the ability of Borrelia to rapidly change the expression of its surface lipoproteins is also discussed.
Who Should Attend!
- Biology students
- Microbiology students
- Entomology Students
- Epidemiology Students
- Those interested in Biological Research
- Those conducting Lab experiments such as Western Blot and ELISA
