Lyme disease is a bacterial infection contracted when a person gets bitten by a tick that is infected with the borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. When a person gets Lyme disease, they can experience a vast number of different symptoms, many of which are non-specific and can mimic various types of other health conditions – leading to the disease being referred to as the “great imitator.”
Medical researchers have been tirelessly working to understand the borrelia burgdorferi bacteria further so that they can develop a better approach to Lyme disease treatment. Currently, the only treatment is antibiotics – and in 20% of cases, these don’t work, leaving people to go on to develop chronic Lyme disease.
Since chronic Lyme can cause debilitating symptoms, and the spread of the infection continues to rise worldwide, understanding the structure of Lyme bacteria as well as how it manages to evade detection within the body is vital.