A Case of Combined Infection with Tick-Borne Encephalitis and Lyme Borreliosis with Severe Meningoencephalitis and Complete Recovery

Yekaterina O Ostapchuk; Andrey M Dmitrovskiy; Elena A Pak; Yuliya V Perfilyeva

doi:10.4103/jgid.jgid_76_22

A Case of Combined Infection with Tick-Borne Encephalitis and Lyme Borreliosis with Severe Meningoencephalitis and Complete Recovery

J Glob Infect Dis. 2023 Mar 31;15(2):81-83. doi: 10.4103/jgid.jgid_76_22. eCollection 2023 Apr-Jun.

Authors

Yekaterina O Ostapchuk^{1

2}, Andrey M Dmitrovskiy^{1

3}, Elena A Pak⁴, Yuliya V Perfilyeva^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Almaty Branch of the National Center for Biotechnology, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
² Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and Immunobiotechnology, M.A. Aitkhozhin's Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
³ National Scientific Center for Especially Dangerous Infections, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
⁴ Taraz City Multidisciplinary Hospital, Taraz, Kazakhstan.

Abstract

Here, we present a case of severe meningoencephalitis caused by combined infection with tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and Lyme borreliosis (LB) in a 25-year-old woman in a rural area of Zhambyl region, Kazakhstan. She presented with fever, nausea, vomiting, weakness, sweating, severe headache, arthralgia, and malaise. The course of illness was further complicated by encephalitis with symmetric lesions of the midbrain cerebral peduncles and serous meningitis. TBE and LB co-infection were established by a two-fold increase in serum IgG titers between day 21 and day 25 of illness. Both infections responded well to combined therapy with human TBE immunoglobulins, antibiotics, antiviral drugs, glucocorticoids, and diuretics. The outcome of the disease was favorable and the patient recovered completely.

Keywords: Borrelia burgdorferi s. l; Kazakhstan; lyme neuroborreliosis; meningoencephalitis; tick-borne encephalitis; tick-borne encephalitis virus.

Publication types

Case Reports