Lyme-disease is a bacterial infection of human beings, that occurs all over the world. It is caused by a bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi) which lives in the saliva of the tick and can be transferred by a tick bite. About 20% of all ticks might be infected. In case of Lyme-disease the skin around the tick bite turns red forming a cicle that slowly enlarges and then fades away, but this does only appear in 75% of the cases. Some weeks later there might still be a numb feeling, or a painful inflammation of the nerves and paralysises. These symptoms can disappear completely and later reoccur again.
Years later, the untreated Lyme-disease sometimes still affects the joints (especially the knees), the skin and the heart.
The Lyme-disease is diagnosed by a blood test and treated with antibiotics. Unfortunately there is no vaccination available.
Lyme-disease is named after the town Lyme, Conneticut, where it was diagnosed for the first time in 1975. At first it was thought to be a kind of rheumatic arthritis, but when the number of cases increased, the responsible people concluded that there had to be something special. They realized that very few patients lived in the city. Most of them lived in dense wooded areas. During investigations they noticed that the disease was not contagious and that the symptoms of the disease only appeared during the summer. A quarter of the affected people could remember a strange reddening of the skin before the arthritic symptoms had appeared. This change of the skin resembled in all patients. Ultimately they ascertained that the disease was transferred by the ticks and triggered by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi.

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