Frimmel et al.
Detection of tick-borne encephalitis virus antibodies in sera of sheep and goats in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (north-eastern Germany)
Ticks Tick Borne Dis., in press, doi.org/10-1016/j.ttbdis.2019.04.012
In the Federal State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (MWP) in north-eastern Germany close to Poland, TBE and TBE foci were well known in the 1960s and 1970s. Nowadays, only a few sporadic TBE cases are reported from this region and MWP is not a TBE risk area according to the definition of the Robert Koch-Institut (Berlin). A total of 479 sera have been collected from sheep and goats from 18 farms between 2014 and 2018 and were analyzed for TBE antibodies by an ELISA and by neutralization (NT) assay. Sera from two sheep were tested NT positive in an area where sera from wild game had previously been tested positive. The second positive sample was from an area where TBE virus positive ticks had been found in 2007. These data show that sheep and goats (like wild game and smaller animals) are suitable sentinels for detecting areas where TBE virus may be endemic and that TBE virus continues to circulate in north-eastern Germany.