CDC: Lyme Disease Cases Increase Dramatically Due to Change in Reporting

Lyme disease cases in the United States increased about 70 percent in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which said that it was due to a change in reporting. Reported cases of the tick-borne bacterial infection surpassed 62,000 in 2022 after it averaged about 37,000 each year from 2017 to 2019, the agency said Thursday in a report. Traditionally, health departments received positive lab tests and went back to doctor’s offices to gather more information about the patients. But reporting fell off in 2020 and 2021 when health department staffers were busy working on COVID-19. Starting in 2022, all that’s required to report cases—at least in high-incidence states—is a positive lab test. It’s possible that better, more sensitive testing is being used more and that may have contributed to the increase, CDC officials said....