Together with the pleasant impressions of a walk in the fresh air, after an outing on a picnic, you can bring home a “surprise” in the form of a dangerous bloodsucker. A tick bite threatens with unpleasant consequences, which in especially severe cases result in death. Therefore, you need to know everything about tick-borne encephalitis: how to recognize the disease in time, what methods of diagnosis and treatment exist, and how to prevent a dangerous disease.

What is tick-borne encephalitis

A dangerous pathology is provoked by a virus belonging to the group of arboviruses of the general family of flaviviruses.

A small spherical particle (40 - 50 nm) is able to quickly and unhinderedly penetrate into blood plasma and other fluids. For comparison, the influenza virus is two times, and measles is four times larger.

The causative agent of encephalitis feels rather well and can survive for a long time even at critically low temperatures. High rates on the thermometer, sun rays, heating and disinfection kill him. If the virus is in dairy products, they will be dangerous for two months. Only boiling will destroy the cause of the infection.

What infects a pathogenic virus? Its action is directed to the brain and spinal cord. Infection spreads to different parts of the brain, causing inflammation. The consequence of this process is severe deviations in the functioning of the central nervous system.

Forms of the disease

Based on the degree of damage and symptoms, there are three forms in which the disease may appear:

  1. Most often, doctors diagnose a febrile form. It occurs in almost half of all patients with encephalitis and is accompanied by sharp chills and high readings of the thermometer.
  2. Meningeal form is diagnosed in 30 percent of patients. In this case, the protective membrane of the brain is already affected.
  3. The focal form is characterized by damage to the brain itself.

Fever encephalitis is easier in symptoms, and the focal form is the most dangerous for its consequences and prognoses.

How can a person get infected

The virus is not found in all ticks, but in certain ticks - representatives of the ixodidae species. Of the one hundred individuals, only six will be carriers of encephalitis.

These bloodsuckers hunt for people, wild and domestic animals.

Therefore, human infection can be carried out in several ways:

  • by bite, the direct path;
  • during crushing of an insect (accidental or when pulling it from the body);
  • through the consumption of raw milk from infected goats or cows.

The longer the insect will be in the human body, the higher the likelihood of encephalitis. Statistics show a figure of 3 - 5% of sick people of the total number of tick bitten.

Important! Encephalitis patients are not contagious to other people.

Most often, the disease is recorded in the warm season. The period from April to July is the most active for ticks. Most likely to pick up a dangerous virus along with bloodsuckers are people in the forest, park, meadow, near the river, having a picnic on the grass.

Incubation period

The danger of the disease is that very often they learn about the presence of the virus in the body too late. After all, if you do not notice the tick, it will release its poison, and the person will not feel anything.

Obvious signs of encephalitis can not be observed for one to two weeks. There are exceptions when the incubation period lasts less than a day or vice versa - more than a month.

It is such a long latent period that complicates the diagnosis of the disease. Indeed, although external symptoms are not observed, viral particles multiply rapidly and enter the bloodstream into almost all internal organs.

Symptoms and signs of tick-borne encephalitis

After the incubation period, when the virus enters, it begins to multiply in various organs, causing discomfort and causing external symptoms.

At the first stage of the disease, signs of infection are similar in all forms of encephalitis.

Among them:

  • malaise;
  • temperature increase (not always significant);
  • chills;
  • acute headache;
  • body aches;
  • weakness, weakness;
  • redness of eyes, face;
  • nausea.

Such a state of health can lead to the thought of flu or other colds. Very often, patients write off their condition precisely for this. In addition, this phase may end with a significant improvement.

If the body is hardy and has strong immunity, then it is able to independently overcome the virus by developing antibodies to the causative agent of infection. In other situations, which becomes a third of all cases of infection, the disease goes into a more difficult stage.

Symptoms of tick-borne encephalitis in this period depend on the form of pathology.

  1. Feverish is characterized by a sharp high fever, which lasts for a week or longer. The fever finds waves: it comes, then disappears. In parallel, there is increased palpitations and sweating, general weakness and lack of appetite.
  2. With the meningeal form, headaches that do not stop with conventional analgesics are especially strong. Also, there are urges to vomit, skin hypersensitivity, fever, intolerance to bright light, tension of the occipital muscles and pronounced symptoms of Kernig (it is impossible to straighten the patient’s leg in the knee joint) and Brudzinsky (when the pressure on the pubic leg bends in the hip and knee joints).
  3. The focal form is accompanied by a very high temperature (up to 40 - 41 degrees), drowsiness, chills and convulsions. The patient develops hallucinations, confusion, he poorly perceives the surrounding reality.Further progression of the disease causes cardiac failure, tremor of the extremities, muscle paralysis and impaired skin sensitivity.

When such signs appear, it is necessary to act without delay. Urgent hospitalization needed.

Diagnostic measures

In order to accurately make a diagnosis that will provide effective treatment tactics, the infectious disease specialist resorts to a comprehensive examination.

It consists of:

  • clinical examinations;
  • epidemiology data;
  • laboratory tests.

First, a thorough examination of the patient is carried out, the doctor listens to complaints and draws attention to the sequence of symptoms.

The second stage requires a thorough study of the situation in which the patient was recently. Data are needed on the place of work, residence, on other places where the person has spent the last time, on the food that he ate. Be sure to clarify information about the possibility of a tick bite and unauthorized extraction of the parasite.

A special analysis of blood, as well as spinal fluid, shows whether pathogenic viruses are present in the body. The study is carried out in a special way polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

If the patient is bitten by a tick, then an analysis for Lyme disease, an equally dangerous pathology, is also mandatory.

In order to monitor the body's response to the virus, a study is conducted on the presence and amount of antibodies. This procedure is done several times during therapy.

Treatment and prognosis

After confirming the diagnosis, the patient is placed in the neurological department of the hospital. Why not infectious? This disease, although it has an infectious cause, is not contagious.

In the treatment of tick-borne encephalitis, the stage at which the pathology is currently located is taken into account.

At an early stage, when the nervous system has not yet been affected, it is possible to use specific therapy, that is, methods that can eliminate the pathogen itself. For this, the patient receives a dose of immunoglobulin for no more than 3 days after infection.

Also during this period, the doctor prescribes to the patient:

  • vitamin complex;
  • antiviral drugs;
  • special diet;
  • bed rest.

If the disease lasts longer, the therapy is not aimed at destroying the virus, but at reducing symptoms and combating possible complications of the disease.

For this, a comprehensive treatment is carried out using:

  • gamma globulin;
  • regulators of water-electrolyte balance;
  • antipsychotics;
  • diuretics.

In especially severe cases, oxygen supply with a mask and the use of medications that help the brain survive oxygen starvation are necessary.

How favorable the prognosis of the disease is depends on its form:

  • with febrile usually comes complete recovery;
  • the meningeal form in rare cases is accompanied by complications in the form of a central nervous system disorder;
  • with a focal form, dangerous life-long complications often occur in children and adults, and a third of patients die.

Tick-borne encephalitis vaccine

Doctors call vaccination an effective method in the course of therapy and for prevention.

There are two types of immunization:

  • active;
  • passive.

The first type of vaccination is carried out to prevent the disease, at the end of winter, a month and a half before the start of tick activity. The vaccine is administered twice, which allows the body to develop antibodies to the causative agent of the infection. Immunity is not stable, therefore, such vaccination should be carried out once a year.

The second type of immunization is given to those people who have been bitten by a tick. An injection of immunoglobulin makes sense, if no more than three days have passed from the moment of the bite, then the effectiveness of the drug is quite high. In this case, it is necessary to take into account a possible allergy to the components of the vaccine.

Complications and Possible Consequences

Each form of the disease threatens with unpleasant consequences if you do not pay attention to the pathology in time.The risk of complications increases in persons with low immunity, in children and the elderly.

Damage to the nervous system causes consequences of different intensity:

  • mental problems;
  • decreased brain activity;
  • chronic migraines;
  • problems with the musculoskeletal system, persistent paralysis;
  • convulsive syndrome;
  • visual impairment;
  • hearing loss.

Often, these complications remain in the person who has suffered encephalitis until the end of life.

Viral Disease Prevention

The dangerous consequences of the disease can be avoided if you protect yourself in every possible way from a possible virus infection.

In order not to become a victim of a serious infection, you need to know the rules of disease prevention:

  1. If you are going for a walk in a forest or park in the warm season, you should close your body as much as possible with the help of clothes with long sleeves and trousers, a headdress and high shoes.
  2. It is necessary to use repellents (insect repellent substances) before going into the forest. Apply the product on clothing, not on the skin.
  3. In nature, from time to time to inspect clothing and open areas of the body (at home and around people, children) in order to identify insects in time.
    Ticks do not immediately attach to the body, they can crawl up to 1.5 - 2 hours on clothes.
  4. Choose a place for a walk or a picnic in nature should be away from tall grass and bushes.
  5. After a walk, you should immediately take off your clothes and throw in the wash. The temperature regime is not less than 60 degrees.
  6. Wash the body thoroughly and examine it, especially the head and popliteal region. It is better to ask relatives to help in the inspection of inaccessible places.
  7. If a tick is found on the body - you do not need to remove it yourself, you should immediately contact a doctor.
  8. No need to drink raw milk, be sure to boil it. Try to buy milk and products from it only with a certificate of quality.
  9. For greater safety, it is worth vaccinating against ticks.

Compliance with the recommendations will leave little chance for dangerous insects. A timely reaction to a tick bite and a visit to a doctor will quickly eliminate the symptoms of encephalitis and avoid the serious consequences of the disease.

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