A man who died Wednesday possibly from Lyme disease will be autopsied on orders of the Supreme Court to determine if the bacterial infection that affects the brain is the cause of his death.

The order was granted to Karl McManus' widow, Mualla Akinci of Sydney. She sought the autopsy because the Health Department denied that Lyme disease killed her husband, who was choked to death by his paralyzed tongue last week.

Akinci is claiming that McManus was bitten three years ago by a tick during a shooting of the TV show Home and Away in a bushland in Waratah Park, northern Sydney. Six weeks later, his arms got paralyzed.

Local tests found him negative from Lyme disease but with multifocal neuropathy. Akinci was unsatisfied with the diagnosis and had him tested in Germany and the U.S. The results were Lyme disease.

The Health Department insisted that there was no case of the disease in the country and wild animals or their parasites don't have the tick from the genus borrelia.

But Peter Mayne, a GP from Laurieton, has claimed that he has 12 patients with symptoms of the disease.

It is a very, very difficult diagnosis to make in a lab. But I believe it does exist and there are many doctors who agree, Mayne said, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

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