Lyme Disease in South America

Abstract : As a preliminary step in the determination of the presence or absence of Lyme borreliosis in Peru, a retrospective serum survey was conducted. Serum samples of a group of 216 individuals (males = or >10 years old), chosen as a high risk group due to their agricultural profession, were tested for the presence of antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi antigen. For this survey, a commercially available ELISA kit (Cambridge Bioscience, Worcester, MA), utilizing antigen-coated microdilution plates was used. This test kit was recently reviewed and compared to Western Blot analysis; the sensitivity and specificity were 89% and 100%, respectively. Of the 216 sera tested, 4, or nearly 2%, were positive for antibody to B. burgdorferi (positive sera were run a second time for reconfirmation). Due to the nature of a retrospective survey, limited clinical data were available on the positive patients. One of the four antibody-positive patients was acutely ill with hepatitis B and rapid plasma reagin-positive and weakly reactive on the fluorescent treponemal absorption test.