HOPE FOR NEW PREVENTIVE TREATMENT FOR LYME

Information provided by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Published December 19th, 2011

A new type of gel may nip the Lyme infection in the bud if applied locally within a few days following a tick bite. Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell therapy and Immunology IZI in Leipzig have developed the medication in close cooperation with the Swiss company Ixodes AG and the Institute for Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich (Institut für Infektionsmedizin und Zoonosen der LMU München).

"If the gel is applied immediately to the bite after the tick has been removed and one does not wait for any potential symptoms to show, Lyme borreliosis could be prevented. This is because during the first few days, the bacteria stay right around the spot where the tick bite occurred and spread out only after that. The active ingredient of the gel is azithromycin, which is highly effective against borrelia bacteria and kills them locally in the skin," says Dr. Jens Knauer, project manager at IZI which is carrying out the clinical trials. Unlike other antibiotics, there is no known resistance of borrelia strains against azithromycin and it has few side effects. The treatment is successful only if the medication is applied within the first few days after the tick bite. "This gel, however, cannot be used to treat an established infection; it is suitable only for prophylaxis," emphasizes Dr. Knauer.

Pre-clinical studies have already been completed successfully; in mice, the gel was effective for up to five days after a tick bite. Starting this past summer, in a clinical phase III study (www.zeckenstudie.com), researchers are testing the medication on persons with proven tick bites. Annually, up to 60,000 are stricken with Lyme borreliosis in Germany alone, according to estimates by the Robert Koch Institute, with an upward trend - since, due to climate change, ticks are expanding their range ever further.