A controversial Lyme disease lobby group has received federal government funding to launch a new counselling and support service run by patients with ‘lived experience’ of the disease.

Under the eight-month pilot program, which began this month, certified counsellors have so far trained 16 volunteers to provide peer-support crisis counselling to Australian patients with Lyme disease who could be at risk of suicide.

The $200,000 Lyme Support program will provide four ‘pillars’ of support to patients, including education, online peer support, crisis counselling and professional patient advocacy services. They hope to scale up training to 60 peer crisis counsellors.

Meanwhile, the group, Lyme Disease Association of Australia (LDAA), continues to reject terms such as ‘Lyme-like illness’ for patients who have been bitten by Australian ticks and says the government’s adoption of the term Debilitating Symptom Complexes Attributed to Ticks (DSCATT) further marginalises patients.