Abstract
Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is the most important tick-transmitted viral disease in Europe and is caused by the TBE virus (TBEV), a member of the Flaviviridae family. In Germany, the vast majority of human TBE cases occurs in the south in so-called risk areas. However, in areas with only sporadic TBE cases, the respective risk assessment is hard to achieve. We therefore intend to use the prevalence of antibodies against TBEV in dogs as an indicator to trace such TBE endemic areas. Between August 2012 and March 2014, a total of 331 blood sera were collected from dogs all over Saxony, which hadn't left the state for the past five years. For the detection of antibodies against TBE-virus a commercial ELISA was used. Ten sera with positive or borderline ELISA results were retested by serum neutralization test. All seven ELISA-positive serum samples could be verified to contain TBE-virus-specific antibodieswith SNT titres between 1:15 and more than 1:40. We therefore found 2.1% seroprevalence in our samples. We conclude, that dogs can very well be used as sentinels, especially in areas with only sporadic TBE cases, although larger sample sizes are desired.
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