France

After Mathias Lacoste’s 20 day hunger strike and an appeal of a 100 doctors, Lyme disease has appeared in the French media.
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Plan of Action
A plan of action has been established. ‘Lyme disease 2017’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reflect enough the urgency of the situation and the need to act swiftly.
Read the plan

In the plan of action  ‘Lyme disease 2017 ’ is stated the following:
–  an action list
–  a road map(steps and convention)
– 5 strategic points:

1. “One health” = improving the monitoring of the situation and concrete steps against ticks
2. Improving monitoring and prevention of transmissible diseases through ticks
3. Normalizing + improving patient care.
4. Improvement of tests(for diagnosis)
5. Mobilization for research on transmissible diseases through ticks

– European and internationaal approach dealing with Lyme disease

– Role of local health agencies  (informing patients and health professionals)

More information: http://social-sante.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/plan_lyme_281216_aes_-_2.pdf

Lyme Action (Complaint against labs, due to the withholding of information)
500 patients have filed a complaint against the Elisa labs tests because they are not 100% reliable, resulting very often in inefficiënt diagnoses.  In France and Europe, it is always compulsory to report if a product is not 100% reliable. Website: http://www.lymaction.fr/

Blood Bank action
Patients in France are taking matters into their own hands and are going to the blood bank en masse. Lyme disease is spread through the blood banks. The Borrelia bacterium has a cell wall-free form, this form escapes the finest filters.

Donation of blood, bone marrow, organs or other tissues transmits pathogens between donor and recipient – even, in the case of blood donation, when there is an attempt to filter blood. At an average of around 0.01 microns in diameter, L-form (!) bacteria are small enough to pass through even the finest of filters: https://mpkb.org/home/pathogenesis/transmission.

Patients will seek media attention during this operation.

In july 2016 Christian Perronne was one of the 100 french doctors who claimed for emergency to help lyme.

Professor Christian Perronne is department head of Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital Raymond Poincare in Garches , and co-director of a working group on vaccination at the World Health Organization (WHO). He is one of the only hospital doctors in France, who for several years have denounced the lack of recognition of chronic Lyme disease.

Underdiagnosed, poorly supported by health authorities, this infection transmitted by ticks, can cause, if left untreated, paralysis and dementia. Now it is in full expansion. “There is an emergency,” said Professor Perronne , who with a hundred other doctors, has launched in the ” Obs ” magazine an appeal to the Minister of Health.