KIDL: tick testing for Lyme disease cannot be done in medical laboratories

As the authors of the post point out, the testing of animal material in laboratories examining clinical material taken from patients is incompatible with the Law on Laboratory Medicine. According to that law, biological material is "cells, tissues, organs or parts thereof, secretions, excretions, body fluids from a human being collected for preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic, sanitary and epidemiological purposes and "in vitro" tissue compatibility assessment.

"Clinical specimens intended for testing in medical diagnostic laboratories must be collected in accordance with specific standards under strictly defined conditions and properly secured, as the proper collection and preservation of material intended for diagnostic testing is a prerequisite for obtaining a reliable result," the KIDL statement reads.

Accordingly, tick testing for transmission disease-causing pathogens cannot be considered a diagnostic test and is not recommended by the bodies of scientists and specialists in infectious diseases, as well as official institutions.

"Arthropods, including ticks according to the above-mentioned law, are not material for testing in a medical diagnostic laboratory, and the results obtained in the course of testing, including the identification of pathogens of tick-borne diseases, cannot be the basis for the introduction of any antimicrobial therapy in a patient," the authors point out.

As KIDL points out, a patient is treated after reliable indications, such as clinical evaluation or laboratory medicine results from material taken from the patient using a validated diagnostic method, after the physician has diagnosed the disease.

Elaborated. based on: KIDL