NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters Health) -- The American Academy of Pediatrics
has issued new guidelines on preventing Lyme disease in children.
Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria spread through the bite of ticks
carried by wild animals such as deer. About 9 out of 10 cases of Lyme disease
are reported from 13 states along the northeastern and mid-Atlantic seaboard and
in the upper north-central region of US, with the bulk of cases among children
aged 2 to 15 and those over age 30.
But the Lyme disease vaccine has not been approved by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) for use in individuals under age 15.
"Lyme disease is so geographically clustered that recommendations (for
prevention in children) are based on risk... We are hampered at this time by the
lack of approval (by the FDA) for the Lyme disease vaccine for persons under the
age of 15," AAP former chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases, Dr. Neal
A. Halsey, told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.
Halsey, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and associates
are currently conducting efficacy trials of the Lyme disease vaccine in
children. "We've identified no problems to date. We hope to present this data to
the FDA in April. Hopefully, the FDA will extend approval down to children as
young as age 4. That might happen by the end of the year, and we hope it will
happen before the next Lyme disease season in 2001."
The vaccine provides effective protection against Lyme disease, especially
the asymptomatic form, Halsey said. "But people can't forgo the usual preventive
measures," he added.
"The most important measure to take is examination of children (after
being in tick-infested areas)," Halsey said. Finding ticks is important because
the tick needs to be attached for at least 36-48 hours before disease
transmission occurs, he noted.
And in the report published this month in the Academy's journal
Pediatrics, child health experts warn against the use of prophylactic
antibiotics for children bitten by ticks. "We do not recommend prophylactic
antibiotics," Halsey stated. "The risk after tick exposure is very low...There
can be more harm done with the overuse of antibiotics in the attempt to prevent
Lyme disease."
