Another take on the Faroes' MS Epidemic. I guess it's all in one's perspective. Researcher Markus Fritzsche offers his opinion here:
Quote:
The arrows on Fig. 6 represent the migratory
routes of seabirds, if a number of species such as
puffins and seagulls are taken together. To avoid
very cold and hot weather, seagulls usually move
parallel to latitude or they simply disperse over
comparatively short distances along rivers.
Although epidemics of MS have been attributed to
changes in ascertainment or better diagnosis, par-
ticularly of more benign cases in the post-war
era, another common setting for MS is proximity
to islands or coastal areas where seabirds nest. At
a site near three major seabird colonies in south-
eastern Alaska, for example, MS was unknown until
its first outbreak occurred in 1965. Tunisia, which is
reached by European migratory birds introducing
Ixodes ticks and B. burgdorferi, scores the highest
rate of MS in Africa. And on the Faroes, where
Ixodes ticks have reportedly transmitted Lyme bor-
reliosis from seabirds to human bird catchers, MS
unfolded after an annulled ban on fowling seabirds
during a food shortage in World War II. Mainly
responsible for the transhemispheric exchange of
B. burgdorferi are puffins or shearwaters. Between
September and December, these birds spend their
time along the American coast from Rio de Janeiro
in the north to the Rio de la Plata in the south. By
March and April, the puffins leave their breeding
colonies on the Falklands and other islands in the
South Atlantic heading northwest across the equa-
tor to the rich fishing waters off Newfoundland.
By the end of July, they gradually move back across
the North Atlantic, where they are often seen
around Scotland, Ireland and the Faroes during
the traditional puffin-hunting season. In the south-
ern oceans, where the winds blow almost continu-
ously eastwards in the roaring forties and furious
fifties, a ringed great puffin has even been found
in Australia. Short-tailed puffins are limited to this
part of the southern hemisphere, where the birds
breed on islands off the coast of New Zealand and
Australia, and in Tasmania, as on the Faroes, their
so-called mutton-bird chicks are fowled regularly.
Although of hitherto unexplained low prevalence,
Lyme borreliosis as well as MS can be found in
South East Asia, namely in Japan and Taiwan down
to the Philippines, where the Wallace Line limits
the southward spread of Borrelia harbouring Ixodes
ticks.
From his 2005 paper : Chronic Lyme borreliosis at the root of multiple
sclerosis – is a cure with antibiotics attainable?
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