A major step in battling Lyme disease and other dangerous tick-borne viruses may have been taken as researchers announced they have developed a vaccine against the ticks themselves.
Rather than combatting the effects of the bacteria or microbe that causes Lyme disease, the vaccine targets the microbiota of the tick, according to a paper published in the journal Microbiota on Monday.
Lyme disease is a condition caused by the Borrelia bacteria, including Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia mayonii and Borrelia afzelii, and is usually spread by bites from ticks.
A tick, whose bite can transmit Lyme disease, at the French National Institute of Agricultural Research in Maison-Alfort on July 20, 2016.
Researchers may have found a vaccine against the tick that transmits the disease.
In the meantime, a vaccine against the bacteria that cause Lyme disease is also in the works, though it may not be ready for several years.
There was one vaccine for the disease available in the 1990s, but it was pulled after low consumer demand. »