Lyme disease between infectious, vectorial and zoonotic framing: towards the “ecologization” of sanitary issue
This paper is devoted to the qualification of Lyme disease in France. Firt vectorial disease in the northern hemisphere, Lyme diseas is transmitted by a genus of tick called Ixodes (in Europe by Ixodes ricinus ; in Asia by Ixodes persulcatus ; in United States and in Canada by Ixodes scapularis). Concerned only with human health and limited to Lyme, a first framing has grown around physicians and patients which are involved in a controversy. Progressively, a second framing has emerged, called vectorial and structured around ecologists, normally not involved in human health. Based on the vector, this framing includes other diseases transmitted by Ixodes ricinus which, during the last 30 years, have been discovered : Tick-Borne Encephalitis, Babesia divergens, Bartonella infection, Tularemia, etc. Linked to these new pathologies, the media coverage of Lyme has finally opened the « vectorial transmission category » – usually associated to mosquitoes and south countries – to ticks and diseases from the north. A third framing dedicated to animal reservoir and called zoonotic is emerging at last. We can see in that framing overlapping a kind of “ecologization” of sanitary issues.