John Aucott, MD

Director, Lyme Disease Research Center
Associate Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD
hopkinslyme.org

Long Haulers: Lessons from Lyme Disease, ME/CFS, and COVID-19

Dr. Aucott is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and the Director of the Johns Hopkins Lyme Disease Research Center. He is principal investigator for the SLICE studies of acute Lyme disease and chronic post-treatment Lyme disease. His research interests center on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of persistent illness after initial antibiotic treatment of Lyme disease and has resulted in over 30 peer reviewed publications. Dr. Aucott is an internationally recognized authority on Lyme disease and has served on groups sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He is the past chair of the HHS Tick-Borne Disease Working Group.  

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Conference Lecture Summary

The COVID 19 pandemic has drawn attention to the varied outcomes that may follow acute infectious diseases. COVID Long Haulers present another example of a patient group that fails to recover their normal health after the initial phase of infection has passed. Long Haulers in COVID 19 and Lyme disease share many clinical features including life altering fatigue, cognitive difficulties and poorly explained pain. The current COVID 19 pandemic may present insights and research discoveries that help understand the underlying mechanisms involved in these hard to understand persisting symptoms. Understanding the cause of these chronic illnesses is the first step to future treatments and recovery.