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KMID : 1143420160090390770
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Public Health Weekly Report
2016 Volume.9 No. 39 p.770 ~ p.774
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Serological Study of Lyme Disease in High-Risk Forestry Workers in South Korea
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Noh Yoon-Tae
Lee Kang-Mo
Kim Su-Yeon
Lee Yeong-Seon
Lim Hyun-Sul
Park Ji-Hyuk
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Lyme borreliosis caused by Borrelia species is transmitted by Ixodid ticks. Borrelia is composed of about 30 species including B. burgdorferi sensu stricto, B. afzelii, and B. garinii. In South Korea, B. afzelii and B. garinii were isolated from Ixodes persulcatus and Apodemus agrarius in animal. Serological reactions in human were detected from the sera of febrile patients for the first time in the 1990s. Thus, we conducted this study to survey the seroprevalence for Lyme disease of a high-risk forestry workers.
METHODOLOGY/RESULTS: A total of 715 serum samples were collected from forestry workers in October, 2015 and January, 2016. In the serological test for Lyme borreliosis, the positive of immunofluorescence antibody assay (IFA) as the first step was defined in the IgM titer with ≥1:16 and IgG titer with ≥1:256 in a single serological titer or the elevated titer change of four times in the paired serum. The positive results confirmed by a western blot assay (WB) in laboratory. Forty sera (5.6%) were positive in the IFA. Among the 40 positive samples, two for IgG (0.3%) and three for IgM (0.4%) showed seroprevalence in the WB.
CONCLUSION: This survey is important to identify the geographical distribution of Lyme disease. We suggest that periodic surveillance and prevention for tick-borne diseases in high risk groups are required.
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KEYWORD
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