So far this year, twice as many have been vaccinated against the tick borne virus compared to last year. Most doses are placed in Aust-Agder and Vestfold.
Norwegian pharmacies have sold 17,600 doses of vaccines against the tick virus TBE so far this year, according to figures from the Pharmacy Association. In addition, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has distributed about 13,000 doses to doctor’s offices and vaccination clinics, NRK reports.
Throughout last year, 17,000 Norwegians chose to vaccinate against the TBE virus, figures from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health showed in April.
The largest proportion of TBE vaccines is in the age group of 5 to 15 years and 55 to 75 years, according to the Pharmacy Association.
The most common disease from tick bites is borreliosis, for which there is no vaccine. It is only one of the 14 ticks that live in Norway that causes this disease in humans, and that is the forest tick.
People who travel in areas with a lot of ticks are recommended to vaccinate against forest tick encephalitis. It is the so-called TBE virus that can infect humans by tick bites.
In addition to Aust-Agder and Vestfold, most doses are placed in Vest-Agder and Telemark. Last year, the largest increase of infection was in Telemark and Vestfold.
So far this year, 5 TBE cases have been reported by the communicable disease reporting system (MSIS), according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
