Hopefully horses and dogs will soon get certain relief from the Lyme disease, which can occur with only a single bite from a wrong tick thereby robbing an animal of every past-time that they had enjoyed in the summer fields.

Lyme disease is basically caused by bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi catch, which usually rides with certain species of ticks and is caused when the ticks bite. Thus, catching and treating the disease early becomes very essential as the bacteria conduct guerilla warfare from hiding places in the joints, nervous tissues and organs of their hosts, which can later become tough to be treated.

To early detect the disease in the horses and dogs, researchers at the Animal Health Diagnostic Centre (AHDC) have developed and introduced a new test for Lyme disease at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell, which will help them understanding the disease better thereby pinpointing time of infection and opening possibilities for earlier intervention with more effective treatment plans.

"We've offered Lyme disease testing for years," said Bettina Wagner, the Harry M. Zweig Associate Professor in Equine Health and lead developer of the test, "but we have recently been able to improve our techniques with the multiplex testing procedure. The new test exceeds its predecessors in accuracy, specificity and analytical sensitivity."