Several cases of tick-borne encephalitis have been identified in Great Britain. A potentially fatal disease that attacks the brain.
As temperatures become milder, the proliferation of ticks starts again. You will therefore have to be very attentive when returning from a walk in the forest or after gardening in the tall grass. Caution is all the more important as a deadly virus transmitted by ticks is progressing in England, which worries the local health authorities.
Tick-borne encephalitis progresses
It is the British government which issued a press release on the risks associated with tick-borne encephalitis. This disease transmitted by the bite of this insect that feeds on blood attacks the brain and can be fatal.
Since 2019, British health authorities have identified at least 3 cases of this disease, the last of which was in 2022, in Yorkshire.
A very common species of tick
If the cases remain rare, the British government is worried about a possible explosion in the number of patients affected by thetick-borne encephalitis in the coming years, as the species of tick carrying the virus is widespread across the Channel.
The health security agency of United Kingdom today calls on hospitals to increase their vigilance and tests to detect cases as soon as possible. Particular attention should also be paid to asymptomatic cases of people who have been bitten by a tick.
Symptoms of tick-borne encephalitis
Tick-borne encephalitis therefore attacks the brain and can cause several types of symptoms. If some patients feel none, others suffer from a state of deep fatigue, drowsiness or conversely uncontrollable agitation. The first signs which should alert are a high fever or headaches which generally appear 2 weeks after the infection and which may suggest the flu.
The infection is to be taken very seriously, because even if the symptoms are sometimes mild, the patient’s condition can quickly worsen and 10 to 20% of infected people have lifelong sequelae. In 2 to 3% of cases, the virus can prove fatal.
It is essential to check your body after an outing in the great outdoors to check that no ticks have bitten you. Ticks that can also transmit other pathologies like Lyme disease.