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Comment by snemvalts | Hacker News Reader

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snemvalts·

It's nothing compared to the other tick disease: tick borne encephalitis. Thankfully there's a vaccine against that

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Is that the one that makes you deathly allergic to beef or something?

Nope, you are thinking about alpha-gal allergy there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy

They are talking about TBE (also known as "FSME" in german speaking countries) instead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis

Thank you :)

What joke is this?

I am vaccinated against this form of tick born disease but of course I am not allergic to beef.

Not the vaccine. Some ticks now transmit the allergen and cause the allergy in humans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy

Though it's not available in the US.

From the Wikipedia article about that disease [1] it seams the disease isn't prevent in the US, so it wouldn't make sense to get vaccinated against it there (like European people who aren't vaccinated against yellow fever by default).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-borne_encephalitis

Lyme disease is not the same as tick-borne encephalitis. Lymerix was a vaccine approved by FDA in US in 1998 because lyme is pretty common in Appalachia, but it was taken off the market. Dogs are recommended to receive a lyme vaccine here, but it's not available to people.

The FDA has licensed a vaccine for tick-borne encephalitis:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/tickborne-encephalitis

The disease appears to be a problem mainly in Europe and Asia, but if you're planning a camping trip in those areas it looks like you can ask a doctor for the vaccine. You also can get the disease from unpasteurized dairy products.

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