Combining primary care surveillance and a meta-analysis to estimate the incidence of the clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis in Belgium, 2015–2017

Lyme borreliosis (LB) is an important tick-borne disease which can cause a broad range of symptoms mainly affecting the skin, the nervous system and the joints. This study aims to estimate the incidence of the different clinical manifestations of LB in Belgium. The incidence of erythema migrans (EM) was estimated through the network of sentinel general practices at 97.6/100,000 inhabitants (uncertainty interval [UI] 82.0–113.0) for the period 2015–2017. This result was used to estimate the incidence of other LB manifestations based on their proportional distribution (ratios) to EM reported in... Mehr ...