Rare tick detected in Oxford

A press release from UKHSA highlights the finding of a rare tick in Oxford: Hyalomma marginatum. Sometimes known as the Bont-Legged Tick it has been seen before in the UK [1] but its presence is rare. Rising temperatures caused by climate change may increase its presence in the UK, though it has been predicted that […]

more...

New Forest Study

Do you spend time outdoors in the New Forest? Working or walking? The UK Health Security Agency has started a study to look at possible exposure to Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). If you have had tick bites, or been exposed to ticks, because of your activities in the New Forest, then what your […]

more...

LDA’s View

LDA was invited to speak at the 2025 European Tick-Borne Conference in March and our chair, Stella Huyshe-Shires, travelled to Paris to give a talk titled “The View from a Patient Organisation”. She decided she couldn’t speak for all patient organisations, as we vary and have faced different histories in different countries, some patient groups […]

more...

ETBD 2025 Conference

Held in Paris, this was the first general European conference on tick-borne diseases. It was attended by researchers and health professionals from 19 countries across Europe and some from the USA, though understandably nearly half of the delegates were French. There was a small Scottish contingent and two speakers from England (one being from LDA). […]

more...

UKHSA video

Watch the latest video from the UKHSA: The UK’s battle against invasive ticks and mosquitoes (youtube.com) It includes filming with scientists who are working on ticks and mosquitoes, both outside and in the laboratory. There is a discussion of the impacts of climate change and how we are altering the environment via green urban pathways […]

more...

Talk for Dartmoor Farmers

LDA was invited by the Dartmoor Hill Farm Project to an event they organised at the end of July to brief farmers about the risk of tick-borne diseases. Most of the event was about the devastating tick-borne illnesses in livestock, with which all farmers are unfortunately familiar. Whether GPs in the area were familiar with […]

more...

20 years, and still In Action!

LDA was formed in 2003 – 20 years ago 20 years ago neither the Department of Health nor the Lyme Reference Laboratory would talk to us. Now they do. 20 years ago there were no uncertainties in Lyme disease diagnosis and treatment. Now these are recognised by many. 20 years ago researchers wouldn’t work with […]

more...

NorthTick 2023 Conference

We were able to send 3 people to Inverness at the end of May 2023 to attend the NorthTick 2023 conference. Before you attend a conference you get a delegate pack with details of speakers and the abstracts of the talks, so you know more or less what is going to be said. You might […]

more...

Is UK Lyme different from Europe’s?

It looks so to us! To highlight the differences we took a poster to the NorthTick 2023 conference held in Inverness on May 30-31st. From what our ticks carry to how UK patients are diagnosed and treated – there are many differences. And it matters. We shall be having discussions with people over the next […]

more...

Help make research more useful!

Not all research is useful. Sometimes it duplicates what has already been done. Sometimes the patients studied are too small a group – a study of 100 people might not generate enough data for people to believe the results. But ten studies of 100 people – that’s much better! But only if the data from […]

more...