Sadly, the same enthusiasm has not been extended to Lyme disease, a persistent illness that has affected the British countryside for decades. Why a Lyme disease vaccine has taken so longFortunately, public awareness has grown. Pharmaceutical companies long viewed Lyme as a niche market, preferring to pour resources into major global health issues like heart disease and obesity. Lyme is among the world’s most common vector-borne diseases, with an estimated 476,000 people diagnosed and treated in the US alone each year. The frontrunner is a traditional vaccine developed by Pfizer and Valneva, which recently demonstrated a 73% efficacy rate in advanced trials.