It's a very difficult issue, of course. I'm not a clinician myself either. I think what we have identified in our action plan is the starting point for that discussion: raising awareness among health professionals and raising their understanding of where Lyme disease is in Canada. Of course, we understand that there are areas with well-established tick populations in the country. We also know that through impacts of climate change and temperature change in the country, the part of the country where ticks are living is growing each year.
I think perhaps debunking the myth regarding whether or not the ticks are here and the idea that if there are no ticks you can't get Lyme disease have certainly been among the primary focuses of our action plan. I think once you address that question—which will be an ongoing area of interest, not only for us but also for our partners in provinces as well as for organizations such as CanLyme—the dialogue with health professionals regarding how best to guide situations in which patients are presenting with these complex challenges and symptoms for which there could be multiple diagnoses will have to continue. We would like to see as thorough as possible an examination to allow that to be ruled out.
I appreciate the challenge, certainly, of going to another part of North America and receiving a positive test, when you may have a negative test in Canada. We appreciate the challenges. I spoke a moment ago about the nature of the tests currently available in some of the private laboratories in the U.S. But I think it's something that we need to work on over a period of time. It doesn't provide short-term relief, which is very difficult, and that's why we're also trying to engage with the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association, and the College of Family Physicians of Canada to really talk about how best to equip the front-line health care professionals, recognizing that all of the evidence, all of the diagnostic testing, is not complete and that we're not in a position to have those perfect tools in the hands of our practitioners. In the meantime we are really trying to work on interim solutions with them.