Epidemiological characteristics of tick borne encephalitis in China, 2014

Objective To analyze the epidemiological characteristics and distribution characteristics of tick-borne encephalitis in China in 2014, and to provide scientific basis for formulating specific prevention and control measures. Methods The epidemic data were obtained from the "infectious disease report information management system" , using Excel 2016, GIS and other software to summarize and analyze the cases of tick borne encephalitis (TBE) reported, using the number of cases, incidence, composition ratio and other indicators to analyze and describe the TBE epidemiological characteristics in China in 2014. Results In 2014, a total of 322 cases of TBE were reported in 9 provinces in China, with an annual incidence of 0.024/100, 000 and 1 death of patient. The provinces with high number of cases were Jilin province, Inner mongolia autonomous region and Heilongjiang province, and the number of cases in the other six provinces is no more than two. TBE was distributed in spring and summer, and it is concentrated in May to July. The age of the affected population was mostly concentrated in 40-49 years old, the male-female ratio was 1.6∶1 (198/124), and the patients were dominantly farmers, household and unemployed workers, and forestry workers, they accounted for 49.40% (159/322), 26.40% (85/322) and 18.60% (60/322) of the national TBE cases respectively. The three hospitals that reported the most TBE cases in 2014 were Inner mongolia forestry general hospital, Jiangyuan People′s hospital of Baishan city, Jilin province and Mudanjiang forestry central hospital of Heilongjiang province. The number of reported cases in these three hospitals accounted for 68.6% of the whole country. The laboratory diagnosis rate of Inner mongolia forestry general hospital was the highest (91.9%). Conclusions In 2014, the incidence of TBE in China has continued to rise compared with the previous two years. The geographical focus is mainly on the forest areas of Daxing′anling, Xiaoxing′anling and Changbai Mountain. Key words: Tick borne encephalitis; Epidemic characteristics; Epidemic surveillance