A warning has been issued as concerns rise over a dangerous tick-borne virus likely to become more widespread as summers get hotter across the UK.
First detected in Britain in Norfolk in 2019, the virus has since been detected in other areas with a 'probable' case found in Scotland's Loch Earn area. Now the spread of tick borne encephalitis (TBEV) is being investigated by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.
The strains of the virus identified in the UK have been close to the European or Scandinavian strains, meaning they may have originally arrived from the near continent. Ticks attach to birds which means they can easily travel, explains Professor of Virology Ian Jones of the University of Reading.
According to the expert, those most at risk at forestry workers and countryside warden who work out in fields - particularly in long grass.
Speaking to the The Mirror, the professor said: "I think that the spread that’s happened in the last three years will continue, so I don’t think it’s going away. It will become more prominent in the tick species across the country."
Amid concerns, Prof Jones is predicting the need for a vaccine to protect against the virus eventually. This jag would likely be offered to those most exposed across the UK.
"The vaccine already exists, I seem to remember Austria vaccinates - not on a public scale," he said.
"But for people who are working in forestry commission and also it can be advised for holidaymakers and so on who are going into an area where there’s likely to be infected ticks present.
"It’s there, it’s used, it’s safe, we don’t need to invent a new one. It’s not like Chadox or anything like that. It could be used, but at the moment the cases wouldn’t support it."
If vaccinations were to be introduced in the UK, Prof Jones said: "No vaccine is compulsory in the UK, but it would be advised for forestry workers or countryside wardens, people like that.
"A rabies vaccine is advised for bat handlers, for example. "They don’t have to take it. Bats contain a form of rabies so it’s advised and offered but it’s certainly not enforced. I suspect that would be the case if it ever came to that."
The professor also suggests that climate change is related to the virus arriving on British soil.
"It’s not so much that we don’t have ticks, we’ve always had ticks but they are more active in the warmer weather, so if you have longer periods of warm weather then, number one, the ticks are more active.
"And, number two, people are out doing outdoor pursuits more often and so you put those two things together and there’s more opportunity for ticks to spread the virus.
"That’s tick to tick and then also more opportunity for occasional human infections. That’s what we’ve just seen and I am sure those numbers will go up but I don’t think they’ll go up in any significant way."
But the professor emphasised: "I don’t think it represents a particular threat to people.
"At the end of the day you have to contact the tick in order to get this disease.
"It’s not something that’s ever going to threaten central London or something on the Tube - it isn’t that type of virus. It’s very much related to outdoor pursuits in forested areas and walking in wildlife.
"The main thing is people just need to be aware of it but it’s not a human threat in that sense in any large scale."
The expert said that after people were "spooked" by Covid, "there's a general interest in any new virus".
Referring to TBEV, he said: "It’s commonplace in Europe and its range has been expanding for the last 30 years so it’s not too much of a surprise that it’s jumped across the Channel and it’s now seems to be embedded in the UK."
However, the professor explained that there is no change of an epidemic as the virus is not respiratory.
"It’s not Covid, it’s not out of the blue," he added. "It’s not a new virus, it’s a virus that was always known. It’s just that it’s here now and it wasn’t here before."
Further, the more severe strains of the virus tend to be associated with areas such as eastern Siberia, with European "typically very mild".
"So the most likely outcome of an infection is headache, bit of fatigue, joint pain, but really nothing more," said Prof Jones.
"If it were to develop into encephalitis then the person would feel a little bit disorientated, confused maybe, and at that point they would present to hospital.
"But a really severe infection is very unlikely."
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