Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Mar 5;56(3):115.
doi: 10.3390/medicina56030115.

Epidemiology of Lyme Disease in a Highly Endemic European Zone

Agnė Petrulionienė  1 , Daiva Radzišauskienė  2 , Arvydas Ambrozaitis  2 , Saulius Čaplinskas  3   4 , Algimantas Paulauskas  5 , Algirdas Venalis  6
Affiliations

Epidemiology of Lyme Disease in a Highly Endemic European Zone

Agnė Petrulionienė et al. Medicina (Kaunas). .

Abstract

Background and objective: Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis (LB), is a tick-borne infectious disease caused by the spirochete bacteria Borrelia. The risk of infection depends on the geographical area, ecological factors, and human behavior. Clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis have a wide range, but the most frequent clinical symptom, which is also a diagnostic symptom, is a skin rash called erythema migrans (EM). The disease is very common worldwide. In Lithuania, the disease frequency is 99.9 cases per 100,000 population (Centre for Communicable Diseases and AIDS, Lithuania, 2017). The main aim of this study was to obtain the baseline characteristics of the disease regarding the infected Lithuanian population. Materials and Methods: We analyzed data from the Centre for Communicable Diseases and AIDS about all Lyme disease (A69.2) diagnosed patients over a three-year period (from 2014 to 2016) in Lithuania. Results: In 2014-2016, 7424 (crude incidence rate 85.4) cases with LB were diagnosed in Lithuania. Most of them (4633 (62.4%)) were identified in women. Older people were more likely to suffer from LB. Urban residents were 2.6 times more often affected that those living in villages. Tick bites were primarily observed in high season months, from May to September (90%), with the highest peak in July. There was a higher number of observed tick bites (p = 0.003) in the urban residents. Erythema migrans occurred in 75.6% LB cases, while other symptoms did not exceed a quarter of all LB cases. There were 7353 (99.6%) cases where LB was confirmed via clinical symptoms and/or laboratory tests. Also, 1720 (23.2%) patients were tested for LB immunoglobulins. Conclusions: This study found a high incidence of Lyme disease in Lithuania. We elucidated the baseline characteristics regarding the infected Lithuanian population which may ease medical clinicians' work on new Lyme diagnoses.

Keywords: Europe; Lithuania; Lyme; borreliosis; epidemiology; erythema migrans.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Tick bite LB infection frequency by months in 2014–2016.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The most frequently observed symptoms of Lyme disease in 2014–2016.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chomel B. Lyme disease. Rev. Sci. Tech. (Int. Off. Epizoot.) 2015;34:569–576. doi: 10.20506/rst.34.2.2380. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sykes R.A., Makiello P. An estimate of Lyme borreliosis incidence in Western Europe. J. Public Health (Oxf. Engl.) 2017;39:74–81. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdw017. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gocko X., Lenormand C., Lemogne C., Bouiller K., Gehanno J.-F., Rabaud C., Perrot S., Eldin C., De Broucker T., Roblot F., et al. Lyme borreliosis and other tick-borne diseases. Guidelines from the French scientific societies. Médecine Mal. Infect. 2019;49:296–317. doi: 10.1016/j.medmal.2019.05.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zanzani S., Rimoldi S.G., Manfredi M., Grande R., Gazzonis A., Merli S., Olivieri E., Giacomet V., Antinori S., Cislaghi G., et al. Lyme borreliosis incidence in Lombardy, Italy (2000–2015): Spatiotemporal analysis and environmental risk factors. Ticks Tick Borne Dis. 2019:101257. doi: 10.1016/j.ttbdis.2019.07.001. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cairns V., Wallenhorst C., Rietbrock S., Martinez C. Incidence of Lyme disease in the UK: A population-based cohort study. BMJ Open. 2019;9 doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-025916. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources