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Chapter 1: A short history of TBE

The discovery of TBE in Europe started with
the clinical-epidemiological description of 24
cases of aseptic meningitis in the district of
Neunkirchen (Lower Austria) by Schneider in
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1931. Although the outcome was described
as benign, the convalescence of many patients
was prolonged. In the early 1940s scientists of
the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
in New York showed serological cross-
reactions between hyperimmune sera of
Louping ill virus and Russian Spring Summer Photo of Evgeny N. Pavlovsky. Credit: LJ Bruce-
encephalitis virus. Chwatt from the Wellcome Collection

The first documented TBEV isolation in Europe
was made from Ixodes ricinus ticks (strain 256) The detection of the TBEV
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in Belarus in 1939, and the second isolation natural transmission cycle
was reported in former Czechoslovakia in
1948 (strain Hanzalova, isolated near Pra- Due to the pioneering research work by the
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gue). In 1952, a virus strain (KEM I) was iso- Zilber expedition in the Far East, the basic out-
lated during an alimentary outbreak in Hunga-
lines of TBEV eco- epidemiology were eluci-
ry. Other eastern European countries followed dated within a few months in 1937. They
shortly after, and TBEV strains were isolated in found that the pathogen is a virus that can be
Slovenia in 1953, in Poland in 1954, in Austria transmitted through the bite of Ixodes persul-
in 1954 (strain Scharl), and in Slovakia in 1958. catus, a hard tick (family Ixodidae).
The first TBEV strain in Finland was detected
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in 1959 (Kumlinge strain). Sweden reported Another expedition was sent out by the USSR
the first detection of TBEV in 1954, and Den- Ministry of Health to the Far East under the
mark reported the first clinical cases of TBE leadership of E.N. Pavlovsky in 1938 to learn
from Bornholm Island, also in the 1950s. In about the circulation of TBEV in the field and
Norway, however, the first described human the involved reservoir hosts. Largely based on
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case of TBE occurred only in 1997. In Germa- the findings during that expedition, Pavlov-
ny, the first descriptions of TBE and the first sky 20,21 developed the famous concept of ‘The
virus isolations resulted from the late 1950s in Natural Nidality of Transmissible Diseases’,
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the former German Democratic Republic. where he described the ecology of zoonoses.
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Rehse-Küpper et al. (1978) were probably Arthropod vectors (ixodid ticks) that become
the first who isolated TBEV strains in the for- infected with TBEV through a blood meal on
mer Federal Republic of Germany as the two an infective host carry the virus to the follow-
virus strains isolated by Müller et al. (1970) ing life stage(s) and transmit it during the fol-
were to the best of our knowledge never con- lowing blood meal(s) to a host. So-called res-
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firmed as being TBEV. ervoir hosts become infected through the bite
of an infected tick, and in turn transmit the
France followed with the first isolation of virus to other feeding ticks. Long-term virus
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TBEV from the Alsace region in 1970. It was circulation exists only in definite types of land-
only in 2016 that the first autochthonous hu- scape with suitable abiotic conditions where
man cases of TBE were described in The Neth-
all the necessary biotic partners (vectors, res-
erlands and a TBEV strain (strain Sallandse) ervoir hosts) are present in sufficient densities.
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was detected in ticks.

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