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. 2017 Apr 20;22(16):30509.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.16.30509.

Estimating the annual burden of tick-borne encephalitis to inform vaccination policy, Slovenia, 2009 to 2013

Mario Fafangel  1   2 , Alessandro Cassini  3   4 , Edoardo Colzani  3   5 , Irena Klavs  1 , Marta Grgič Vitek  1 , Veronika Učakar  1 , Marion Muehlen  3 , Marko Vudrag  1 , Alenka Kraigher  1
Affiliations

Estimating the annual burden of tick-borne encephalitis to inform vaccination policy, Slovenia, 2009 to 2013

Mario Fafangel et al. Euro Surveill. .

Abstract

With an annual incidence between 8 and 15 per 100,000 population in the period from 2009 to 2013, Slovenia has one of the highest notified incidences of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in Europe. TBE vaccination coverage remains at about 7.3%. To inform vaccination policy, we used surveillance data from 2009 to 2013 to calculate the overall and age- and sex-specific mean annual TBE incidence. We estimated disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) with 95% uncertainty intervals (UI), using the Burden of Communicable Diseases in Europe approach from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The mean annual incidence was 11.6 per 100,000 population, peaking in older age groups (50-74 years: 18.5/100,000) while relatively lower among children (5-14 years: 10.2/100,000). We estimated an overall 10.95 DALYs per 100,000 population per year (95% UI: 10.25-11.65). In contrast to the TBE incidence, the disease burden in children aged 5-14 years was higher than in adults aged 50-74 years: 17.31 (95% UI: 14.58-20.08) and 11.58 (95% UI: 10.25-12.91) DALYs per 100,000 stratum-specific population, respectively. In a limited resource setting where prioritisation of TBE vaccination strategies is required, vaccination programmes targeting children may have a higher impact on disease burden.

Keywords: burden of illness; tick-borne encephalitis - TBE; vaccination; viral encephalitis; viral meningitis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Outcome tree for tick-borne encephalitis virus infection
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean annual incidence per100,000 of tick-borne encephalitis, by age and sex, Slovenia, 2009–2013 (n = 1,190)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Estimated mean annual disability-adjusted life years per 100,000 stratum-specific population due to tick-borne encephalitis, by age and sex, Slovenia, 2009–2013
Figure 4
Figure 4
Estimated mean annual incidence per 100,000 and mean annual disability-adjusted life years per 100,000 stratum-specific population due to tick-borne encephalitis, by age group, Slovenia, 2009–2013
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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