Radzišauskinė et al.
Epidemiological patterns of tick-borne encephalitis in Lithuania and clinical features in adults in the light of the high incidence in recent years: a retrospective study.
Eur. J. Neurol. 2018; 25: 268-274
Lithuania is one of the countries with the highest incidence of TBE. This article comprehensively describes the epidemiological patterns and clinical features of TBE from 1970 to 2014. While the first TBE case has been reported in 1968, serology was introduced in 1970 in Lithuania. Since then, TBE incidence rate increased by 8.5% per year. In contrast to western European countries, the annual peak is in October (not in late spring/summer) and then decreases. A total of 460 TBE cases have been analyzed. In 58.1%, a biphasic clinical course was observed. The mean duration of the first phase was 4.9 days, the mean interval between the first and the second stage was 14.6 days, and the median length of hospital stay was 11.9 days. The most frequent clinical form was meningoencephalitis (81.3%), co-infection with Lyme borreliosis was diagnosed in 2%, and 0.7% of the patients died. A total of 7.8% of the patients had an alimentary infection. The vaccination rate is still low in Lithuania, especially in the at-risk group.