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Tick-borne encephalitis bigger problem in Europe than previously thought: experts

Xinhua, January 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) appears to be a bigger problem in Europe than previously thought, experts on Friday said.

Michael Kunzle from the Social Medicine Institute at the Medical University of Vienna said like influenza, TBE is a virus, but while vaccinations for influenza have spotty effectiveness, those for TBE offer a protection rate of 99 percent. Influenza as a virus can however be treated, while TBE cannot, despite being far more predictable, he added.

The experts said within Austria the virus has however made its way further westward over recent decades, only appearing in the state of Tyrol in 1984, and in Vorarlberg as late as 2000. Carriers such as dogs, mice, foxes, deer, birds, and hedgehogs are largely responsible for having transported virus-carrying ticks to higher-lying regions, they said.

Other regions of Europe in which the virus has not previously been known to be active have also seen higher incidences of contagion in recent years, such as in France and Finland. Finnish expert Elina Tonteri said there were 233 patients of the "tick disease" in Finland between 2007 and 2013, earlier on in the south of the country, but now increasingly also in the north.

The prevalence of the TBE virus is thus now believed to extend up to just a short distance below the Arctic Circle, though whether global warming or other factors are responsible for this is currently uncertain. Endit