A dangerous tick borne virus - new to the UK - could become more widespread as summers get hotter and may lead to vaccines being needed, an expert has warned.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs are currently investigating the spread of tick borne encephalitis (TBEV).
It was first detected in Britain in Norfolk in 2019, and has since been found in Hampshire/Dorset and Yorkshire, where the first human case was confirmed last year.
This week, the health authorities warned Brits it may be present elsewhere in the country due to the tick species that carries it being now more widespread.
Prof Ian Jones, Professor of Virology, University of Reading, told the Mirror: "I think that the spread that’s happened in the last three years will continue, so I don’t think it’s going away.
"It will become more prominent in the tick species across the country."
He said those most at risk are forestry workers and countryside wardens, who work out in the fields, particularly long grass.
Genetically, the UK viruses have been close to European or Scandinavian strains so they may have originally arrived from the near continent in ticks attached to birds, he continued.
A vaccine used in certain parts of Europe may eventually be offered in the UK to those most exposed, Prof Jones predicts.
"The vaccine already exists, I seem to remember Austria vaccinates - not on a public scale," he said.
"But for people who are working in forestry commission and also it can be advised for holidaymakers and so on who are going into an area where there’s likely to be infected ticks present.
"It’s there, it’s used, it’s safe, we don’t need to invent a new one. It’s not like Chadox or anything like that.
"It could be used, but at the moment the cases wouldn’t support it."
In the event that vaccinations were introduced in the UK, Prof Jones said: "No vaccine is compulsory in the UK, but it would be advised for forestry workers or countryside wardens, people like that.
"A rabies vaccine is advised for bat handlers, for example.
"They don’t have to take it. Bats contain a form of rabies so it’s advised and offered but it’s certainly not enforced. I suspect that would be the case if it ever came to that."
Prof Jones believes climate change may have something to do with the virus arriving on these shores.
"It’s not so much that we don’t have ticks, we’ve always had ticks but they are more active in the warmer weather, so if you have longer periods of warm weather then, number one, the ticks are more active.
"And, number two, people are out doing outdoor pursuits more often and so you put those two things together and there’s more opportunity for ticks to spread the virus.
"That’s tick to tick and then also more opportunity for occasional human infections. That’s what we’ve just seen and I am sure those numbers will go up but I don’t think they’ll go up in any significant way."
The professor emphasised: "I don’t think it represents a particular threat to people.
"At the end of the day you have to contact the tick in order to get this disease.
"It’s not something that’s ever going to threaten central London or something on the Tube - it isn’t that type of virus. It’s very much related to outdoor pursuits in forested areas and walking in wildlife.
"The main thing is people just need to be aware of it but it’s not a human threat in that sense in any large scale."
Prof Jones said due to people being "spooked" by Covid "there's a general interest in any new virus".
Referring to TBEV, he said: "It’s commonplace in Europe and its range has been expanding for the last 30 years so it’s not too much of a surprise that it’s jumped across the Channel and it’s now seems to be embedded in the UK."
He said there's no chance of an epidemic because it's not respiratory.
"It’s not Covid, it’s not out of the blue," he added. "It’s not a new virus, it’s a virus that was always known. It’s just that it’s here now and it wasn’t here before."
What's more, the severe strains of the virus tend to be associated with eastern Siberia, while European strains are "typically very mild".
"So the most likely outcome of an infection is headache, bit of fatigue, joint pain, but really nothing more," said Prof Jones.
"If it were to develop into encephalitis then the person would feel a little bit disorientated, confused maybe, and at that point they would present to hospital.
"But a really severe infection is very unlikely."
