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Stephen Evan Malawista was an American medical researcher and Professor of medicine within the rheumatology department of Yale University. Malawista is credited as the co-discover of Lyme disease and led the research team which identified the disease.
In 1975, Malawista and his Yale colleague, researcher Dr. Allen Steere, began work which would reveal Lyme disease as a new, distinct illness. Malawista and Steere had been contacted by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, which had been concerned about a mysterious cluster of similar illnesses and symptoms which had begun afflicting patients within the southeastern region of Connecticut. Malawista and Steere identified the illness, as a new bacterial infection spread by the bite of a tick. In 1977, Malwista and Steere identified the illness as a new infection spread by tick bites. Malawista initially named the new disease "Lyme arthritis." The name was later changed to Lyme disease after the illness was later shown to encompass a wide range of symptoms which were not limited to joint pain.
Malawista and his colleagues initially hypothesized that Lyme disease was caused by a virus. However, was later disproved in 1982 by microbiologist Willy Burgdorfer, who correctly identified the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium as the cause of Lyme disease in Connecticut and the eastern United States. Other scientists later determined that the deer tick was the carrier of the bacteria. Malawista and his colleagues contributed to the research the possible spread of Lyme disease by deer ticks by comparing the incidents of the disease along the eastern and western sides of the Connecticut River.
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