A Review of Force Health Protection Aspects of Lyme Disease in the U.S. Military.

Autor:	Melanson VR; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Bateman SL; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Hering K; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Weiss TJ; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Reilly JL; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Davis KT; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Gramlich VA; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Jankovich A; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Daffin M; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Hershfield JR; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA., Barnhill JC; Department of Chemistry & Life Science, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY 10996, USA.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Military medicine [Mil Med] 2024 Sep 10. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Sep 10.
DOI:	10.1093/milmed/usae415
Abstrakt:	Introduction: Lyme disease (LD) is an underrated threat to the military that negatively impacts mission readiness. Lyme disease has traditionally been thought to only be a risk in an operational context, where training or deployments are frequently conducted in heavily wooded environments. However, this view diminishes risks posed by many off-duty outdoor recreational activities. Furthermore, although the Army introduced a permethrin factory-treated Army Combat Uniform in 2012, permethrin retention and subsequent protection have been shown to decrease significantly after 3 months of wear. Thus, although LD is a known health risk that threatens unit readiness, beyond using treated uniforms there has been little progress at the unit level to address this threat. Materials and Methods: Focusing on a narrative review of LD and its impact on U.S. military force health protection, sources included DoD websites and policies, government press releases and information papers from sources like the CDC and FDA, and scholarly peer-reviewed journals with full-text access from the online databases EBSCOhost, MEDLINE, SCOUT, and Google Scholar. Searches included the following key words: LD and military, Army, etiology, epidemiology, incidence, treatments, post-treatment LD, and chronic LD. Articles were selected for review based on the relevance of their abstracts and titles. Results: Although the incidence of LD appears to be increasing among service members, it is difficult to attribute this increase to military-related duties. Also, despite ongoing LD research specifically conducted and funded by the DoD, there are limited data on the mitigating effects of force education and permethrin-treated uniforms on the LD threat. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that LD negatively impacts military readiness and monetary costs diverted from other priorities. Conclusion: Lyme disease poses a genuine threat to the health and careers of service members and is an often-overlooked disruptor to military operations. Simple, feasible prevention strategies that are tailored to high-risk geographic regions can be emphasized by military units to reduce the incidence of on-duty and off-duty cases. Additionally, there remains a critical need for new preventative and diagnostic measures for LD. (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2024. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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