Doctors warn that a tick season has already started

Experts emphasize that both mushroom pickers and townspeople strolling in parks should be very vigilant. Ticks are often found after walking through parks and forest parks.

Ticks start to show themselves if the air temperature for three consecutive days exceeds 8 °C. Moreover, the presence of snowdrifts does not bother them at all. According to statistics, children and animals most often suffer from ticks.

As a rule, only people visiting Siberia and the Far East are vaccinated against encephalitis. These are endemic encephalitis regions. But doctors remind that vaccination should be performed not later than a month before a trip to problem regions. Vaccination is also recommended in three stages. The first vaccination is done in the autumn, the second in three to seven weeks and the final one – in a year. This allows you to develop immunity for at least three years.

Ludmila Karan, the head of the research group on development of new methods of diagnostics of natural focal diseases of Central Research Institute of Epidemiology says: "Today there are no fast and high quality vaccines for encephalitis. There is an anti-tick immunoglobulin, which can be administered prophylactically. Its effect starts immediately and lasts for one month. But this is a passive protection, the effectiveness of which depends on many factors, such as quality of drugs, antibody titer or virulence of the virus which can infect humans. For the period of trip such protection can only secure last year's vaccination against encephalitis, from which a person still has antibodies in the blood."

Source: MEDdaily