tick borne encephalitis virus: clinical use

Prescribing considerations

• Base vaccination on individual TBE exposure risk and official recommendations.
• Protection may be reduced in older or immunocompromised recipients; consider specialist serological assessment where appropriate.
• Assess autoimmune or active demyelinating disease, poorly controlled epilepsy, bleeding disorders and anticoagulant use.
• Vaccination does not replace tick avoidance or protect against other tick-borne pathogens.

Contraindications and cautions

• Hypersensitivity to the active substance, an excipient or production residues including formaldehyde, neomycin, gentamicin or protamine sulfate.
• Severe hypersensitivity to egg or chick proteins requires avoidance or specialist assessment with appropriate emergency supervision.
• Postpone vaccination during moderate or severe acute illness, with or without fever.

Monitoring

• Ensure immediate access to anaphylaxis treatment and suitable post-injection supervision.
• Record the product and batch number.
• Investigate compatible illness despite vaccination, including alternative tick-borne infections.
• Consider specialist antibody testing when immune response is uncertain; flavivirus antibodies can cross-react.

Clinical pharmacology

An aluminium-adsorbed, inactivated Neudörfl-strain TBE vaccine produced in chick embryo fibroblast cells. It induces neutralising anti-TBE antibodies; conventional pharmacokinetic assessment does not apply to vaccines.

Formulation and product differences

• The selected product is an off-white, opalescent suspension in a prefilled syringe for people aged 16 years and over.
• It contains human albumin, sucrose, hydrated aluminium hydroxide and buffered salts and may contain trace production residues.
• Store refrigerated and protected from light. Do not freeze or mix with other medicinal products.