Perfect conditions

The ticks are already lying in wait for victims

Anyone out and about in meadows and forests at the moment should be careful.(Bild: Heiko Barth – stock.adobe.com)

The annoying pests are currently finding ideal conditions. They love it warm and humid and the winter wasn't particularly cold either. Number of vaccinations increases slightly again in Upper Austria after corona, protecting people from TBE.

They are mainly lurking in the country's meadows and can cause serious health problems. It's high season for ticks again. "It's actually almost all year round because we always have very mild winters," says Stephan Weigl from the Biology Center Linz. Tick expert Fritz Gusenleitner adds: "The animals like it warm and humid and therefore have the ideal conditions to become active."

Many different species
18 different species are currently found in Austria. The common wood tick accounts for the vast majority - almost 95 percent according to AGES.

Ticks like it moist and warm. And this provides them with the ideal conditions for spreading.

Fritz Gusenleitner, Zeckenexperte

Ticks are dangerous because they can transmit diseases. The best known of these are tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and Lyme disease. While it is not possible to protect yourself against the latter with a vaccination, it is possible with TBE. This is probably why the number of reported TBE cases, which are generally notifiable, is relatively low.

36 cases in 2023 
"According to the provisional annual report of notifiable infectious diseases from the Ministry of Health, a total of 36 cases of TBE were registered in Upper Austria last year," according to the office of Deputy Provincial Governor and Health Officer Christine Haberlander.

The risk of ticks is particularly high in the red areas.(Bild: stock.adobe, Krone KREATIV)

Figures vary greatly
The number of tick vaccinations in Upper Austria has been very variable in recent years. In 2018, there were only 12,613, compared to 21,059 a year later. In the pandemic years, the numbers were then significantly lower, while they rose to 14,407 in 2022 and 16,199 in 2023. This year, only 1,654 people have been protected so far - boosters and first-time vaccinations. "Vaccination is the safest protection against TBE, especially in high-risk areas such as in our province," emphasizes Provincial Councillor Haberlander.

No "big" solution
Incidentally, it is not possible to combat ticks on a large scale, for example by spraying the areas where they are particularly common. "Everything else would die too. And poison has never been a good solution," says expert Fritz Gusenleitner.