A group of state lawmakers are looking to help eradicate Lyme disease in the First State.
Lead by House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf (D-Rehoboth Beach) and Sen. Ernie Lopez (R-Lewes), the task force is recommending making Delaware doctors and nurses attend continuing education classes on Lyme disease.
The group is also encouraging insurance companies to pay for better diagnosis and treatment, call on DNREC to eradicate ticks that carry the disease and beef up research by state universities to better understand it.
“It’s not something to sneeze at. It is a devastating illness and it is devastating our state," Schwartzkopf said.
An infected blacklegged or deer tick transmits the disease through a bite, normally leaving a characteristic bullseye rash, but can also leave a person feverish or with muscle and joint pain.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 400 confirmed cases in 2013 – a steady decline from the 2009 high of nearly 1,000.
Last year, 96 percent of confirmed cases came from 14 states – nearly all in the Northeast.
Sandy Reyes, a long-time Lyme disease sufferer, says before she was diagnosed in 1995, she would sometimes not be able to walk well, clutching at parking meters to reach her car after work.
“I had pain in my joints, pain in my knees, pain in my spine, pain in my neck. I had headaches. I had very low energy and almost a little bit of a brain fog by the end of a day.”
After several doctors and misdiagnoses, Reyes finally underwent two months of intravenous of antibiotics to help take out most of the disease in her central nervous system.
But she says that could've been avoided had it been identified earlier.
Bills aimed at enacting the task force recommendations are still in draft form and will be introduced when the General Assembly reconvenes next month.