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. 2018 Nov;23(45):1800201.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2018.23.45.1800201.

Tick-borne encephalitis in Europe, 2012 to 2016

Julien Beauté  1 , Gianfranco Spiteri  1 , Eva Warns-Petit  2   3 , Hervé Zeller  2
Affiliations

Tick-borne encephalitis in Europe, 2012 to 2016

Julien Beauté et al. Euro Surveill. 2018 Nov.

Abstract

Since 2012, tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is a notifiable in the European Union. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control annually collects data from 28 countries plus Iceland and Norway, based on the EU case definition. Between 2012 and 2016, 23 countries reported 12,500 TBE cases (Ireland and Spain reported none), of which 11,623 (93.0%) were confirmed cases and 878 (7.0%) probable cases. Two countries (Czech Republic and Lithuania) accounted for 38.6% of all reported cases, although their combined population represented only 2.7% of the population under surveillance. The annual notification rate fluctuated between 0.41 cases per 100,000 population in 2015 and 0.65 in 2013 with no significant trend over the period. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had the highest notification rates with 15.6, 9.5 and 8.7 cases per 100,000 population, respectively. At the subnational level, six regions had mean annual notification rates above 15 cases per 100,000 population, of which five were in the Baltic countries. Approximately 95% of cases were hospitalised and the overall case fatality ratio was 0.5%. Of the 11,663 cases reported with information on importation status, 156 (1.3%) were reported as imported. Less than 2% of cases had received two or more doses of TBE vaccine.

Keywords: Europe; epidemiology; surveillance; tick-borne diseases; tick-borne encephalitis (TBE); vector-borne infections; viral encephalitis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Rate of locally acquired tick-borne encephalitis per 100,000 population, by place of infection, European Union and European Economic Area countries, 2012–2016
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of reported tick-borne encephalitis cases by month of onset, and 12-month moving average, 19 European Union and European Economic Area countries, 2012–2016
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of reported tick-borne encephalitis cases by week of onset and 52-week moving average, 12 European Union and European Economic Area countries, 2012–2016
Figure 4
Figure 4
Notification rates of tick-borne encephalitis per 100,000 population, by sex and age group and male-to-female rate ratio by age group, European Union and European Economic Area countries, 2012–2016
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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