Infections with Lyme disease pathogens in Germany have been declining for a decade. In 2020, the number rose again for the first time. Is this also a consequence of the corona pandemic?
Warning sign on a natural meadow in Upper Bavaria. (Archive image from 2013)
(dpa) In 2020, the number of tick-borne Lyme infections in Germany increased by around eight percent compared to the previous year. This could possibly be a result of increased leisure activities in the countryside due to the restrictions imposed by the corona measures, said Dominik von Stillfried, CEO of the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physician Care in Germany (Zi). A total of around 360,000 so-called Lyme diseases were diagnosed by the panel doctors, according to an evaluation by the Zi for the German Press Agency.
The number of infections had fallen slightly since 2010. But in 2020, 465 people per 100,000 insured persons contracted the pathogen, after 429 in 2019. Doctors registered Lyme disease most frequently in Saxony: 927 per 100,000 insured persons became infected there. There were also many infections in Thuringia (780), Brandenburg (707), Bavaria (637) and Saxony-Anhalt (615). The residents of the city states of Hamburg (210) and Berlin (258) got off comparatively lightly.
Five federal states recorded a double-digit percentage increase between 2019 and 2020: North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Lower Saxony. In Brandenburg, on the other hand, slightly fewer patients per 100,000 insured were infected, at minus 0.4 percent.
Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks. The bacteria are found throughout Germany in the small bloodsuckers and can cause various diseases of the skin, nerves and joints. According to experts, these can be treated well with antibiotics. A warning sign is a ring-shaped redness around the puncture site that occurs after several days, and you should definitely see a doctor if you have one.