Progressive tick-borne encephalitis in children

Abstract

Tick-borne infections comprise a large group of diseases with a diverse etiology and clinical manifestations. Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is the most important of them. It is characterized by an unpredictable course and possible development of severe chronic disease observed in 1–3% of cases. Chronic disease usually develops several months and sometimes even years after the acute period, primarily in patients with meningoencephalitic and, less frequently, polioencephalomyelitic TBE. In such cases, infectious process turns into chronic disease that can manifest itself after 3–6 months to 5 years following the acute period after being triggered by intercurrent infections, injuries, or early rehabilitation measures. Therefore, TBE is a time bomb. In this article, we report a case of chronic TBE complicated by Kozhevnikov epilepsy in a child aged 4 years 9 months. Key words: tick-borne encephalitis, children, epilepsy, chronic disease, cytoflavin