TBE in Serbia

Abstract

Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) was first isolated in the former Yugoslavia in 1953 from the blood of infected human patients in Slovenia. The virus was isolated from ticks in 1954, also in Slovenia. Thereafter a number of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) foci were registered in the western part of the country, while in the Republic of Serbia such foci were not registered. In the period following 1969, no new infections with TBEV could be confirmed in the Republic of Serbia through the routine serological testing of samples from more than 1,000 patients with clinical signs of meningitis and encephalitis, as conducted in laboratories of the Institute of Immunobiology and Virology “Torlak” in Belgrade.