Explainer: Can you catch Lyme disease in Australia?
The issue of Australian-contracted Lyme disease has been around for decades. Can you contract it here? The answer is ... it’s complicated.
Can you catch Lyme disease within Australia? The answer is officially no, but that official answer is hotly contested.
The issue of Australian-contracted Lyme disease has been around for decades, and was the subject of a 2015 Senate inquiry.
That inquiry noted accredited laboratories had not found classical Lyme disease in Australian patients apart from those who had contracted it overseas. This was seen by the government and medical bodies as evidence it was not endemic to Australia.
However, the inquiry warned against ruling out entirely the possibility of Australian-borne Lyme disease, as it was “not satisfied that enough has been done to examine testing processes used by laboratories”.
Ten years on, another Senate inquiry into the “diagnosis and treatment for people in Australia with tick-borne diseases” again broached the issue. It noted there was a raft of tick-borne illnesses in Australia, but that locally acquired Lyme disease remained a contentious topic.
The federal Health Department submission to the most recent inquiry said “extensive surveys and research” had not found any ticks in Australia with the Borrelia bacteria that carries Lyme disease, and therefore they were “not in a position to support the diagnosis of locally acquired Lyme disease”.
“The Australian government’s position is accepted by most conventional medical practitioners and the scientific community, based on the available evidence,” the submission said.
This position, however, continues to be disputed by the Lyme Disease Association of Australia, which advocates for recognition, equitable treatment and support for Australian tick-borne disease patients.
The LDAA says the view that the Borrelia bacteria is not in Australia is based on 1994 research, with other studies showing it is present in ticks found in native and domestic animals, and cattle.
The current treatment pathway for those who have Lyme-disease like symptoms (rashes, joint pain, headaches, fatigue, arthritis and even cognitive difficulties) is the DSCATT (Debilitating Symptom Complex Attributed to Ticks) program, which was introduced to recognise those who didn’t fit into a recognised tick-borne disease and hadn’t travelled overseas.
But the LDAA argues this has done little to improve outcomes for those suffering tick-borne diseases.
The federal government has yet to respond to the 2025 Senate inquiry, which reported just before the last Albanese government went into caretaker mode.
The NSW government is more open to the potential for Lyme disease to be contracted locally. “Although locally acquired Lyme disease cannot be ruled out, there is little evidence that it occurs in Australia,” its health information fact sheet says.
The Australian Medical Association agrees there is no conclusive evidence of locally acquired Lyme disease, but says the term “Lyme-like illness” is acknowledged for those experiencing serious illness after being bitten by ticks in Australia, with appropriate support and medical care provided regardless of a specific diagnosis.
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