World Health Organization (WHO) removes Congenital Lyme Borreliosis from ICD-11 codes.

​Very serious allegations have been made that Public Health Agency of Canada is interfering with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s process for the new ICD Codes by requesting the WHO delete the code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis. 

Please see:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/breaking-news-public-health-agency-canada-secretly-act-luche-thayer

Regardless of whether these allegations are true, the code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis appears to have been inappropriately removed from the WHO ICD-11 platform despite being declared stable as of June 2018. 

Attached FYI is a pdf of our letter this morning to our Prime Minister, Health and Justice Ministers and Public Health Agency of Canada and opposition leaders.  We are calling on Canada, as a United Nations member state, to protect the integrity of the WHO process and insist that the WHO immediately reinstate the ICD Code for Congenital Lyme Borreliosis and allow the WHO process to proceed uninterrupted and without interference.

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Update: On December 21st and 22nd, 2018, Ms Kimberlie Elmslie, Vice-President, Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada wrote in an email response to LymeHope and others:

“I am writing to indicate that the Public Health Agency of Canada did not request that the WHO remove congenital Lyme disease from ICD-11.  The WHO has a well-established process of scientific evaluation used to update and revise the International Classification of Diseases.  You may wish to seek information from the WHO on this process.”

And
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“I can confirm that PHAC did not make representations to ‎WHO MSAC at their September 6th or October 25th meetings. PHAC did not have advance knowledge of the outcomes of these discussions and only became aware through the postings on the ICD portal. The fact that we have never contacted WHO on congenital Lyme disease has also been confirmed directly to us by WHO officials.”

icd-11_letter_dec_20_2018.pdf
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File Type:	pdf

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