...and for a few reasons described below this is a pretty low number (doesn't include EM cases)
yle.fi/uutiset/new_thl_data_show_6000_lyme_disease_cases_in_2015_-_three_times_previously_reported/8964884Excerpt:
"The number of tick-borne borreliosis cases registered in Finland in 2015 was 6,000, three times more than previously reported by the National Institute for Welfare and Health, THL. The organisation originally posted 1,900 cases, and says that the large discrepancy was due to the use of different statistical methods in logging diagnosed infections."
""So the register contains only these cases that have been confirmed by laboratory tests. Testing isn’t recommended during the early stage of the disease, because the results are still unreliable at that point," Sane added."
This next part is interesting because it is exactly the opposite of the IDSA's approach:
"On the other hand, Lyme disease cases diagnosed on the basis of the ring-shaped rash that appears in the early stages of infection are logged in a different database. They therefore don’t show up in the data that THL publishes because it is not an official tracking system. The data are also not entirely reliable.
"There are shortcomings in the coverage. Although there are diagnoses, professionals don’t always remember to record them, or then they don’t do it right," Sane pointed out.
The THL is currently preparing a broad analysis of borreliosis epidemiology. During that process, officials have compared the data in different databases.
"On that basis it’s highly likely that in the future we will use both systems to track the disease. At the moment we are not able to do this," he concluded."
-p