Abstract
To better define areas of human Lyme disease risk, we compared US surveillance data with published data on the seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies among domestic dogs. Canine seroprevalence >5% was a sensitive but nonspecific marker of human risk, whereas seroprevalence <1% was associated with minimal risk for human infection.
Highlights
To better define areas of human Lyme disease risk, we compared US surveillance data with published data on the seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies among domestic dogs
Data on canine seroprevalence of B. burgdorferi antibodies were obtained from a 2009 publication by Bowman et al that reported results for 982,336 dogs tested throughout the United States by using a commercial C6-based assay during 2001–2006 [8]
Canine seroprevalence for the county was >5%, a survey of all county veterinarians indicated that 11 of 12 seropositive dogs had lived in or traveled to Conclusions Our results confirm an overall correlation between canine seroprevalence and reported human incidence of Lyme disease as measured through national surveillance
Summary
To better define areas of human Lyme disease risk, we compared US surveillance data with published data on the seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies among domestic dogs. We compared US national surveillance data on Lyme disease with recently published data on B. burgdorferi antibody seroprevalence in dogs [8] to determine the degree of concordance between these 2 measures of Lyme disease risk and to assess the potential for canine seroprevalence to predict areas of Lyme disease emergence among humans. Data on canine seroprevalence of B. burgdorferi antibodies were obtained from a 2009 publication by Bowman et al that reported results for 982,336 dogs tested throughout the United States by using a commercial C6-based assay during 2001–2006 [8]. Counties meeting criteria for emergence of human Lyme disease during 2007–2009, by canine seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi antibodies during 2001–2006, 46 US states*
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