ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIAL BIOLOGICAL HAZARD OF TICKBORNE DISEASES MORBIDITY IN THE REPUBLIC OF ALTAI

Abstract

Objective: assessment of dynamics of biological hazard of morbidity of tickborne encephalitis and other tickborne transmissible feral herd infections in the Republic of Altai.
Methods: Statistical data of disease control and prevention service of the Republic of Altai was used. Calculation of prognostic value of incidence was done by building of connectionist model with a time series forecasting method.
Results: Ranking of administrative territories allowed us to divide Republic districts into three groups: with high (from 25 per 100 thousand population), medium (15–24.9 per 100 thousand population), and low (up to 14.9 per 100 thousand population) levels of incidence of tickborne encephalitis. The Turochaksky and Ongudaysky districts were assigned to the group with a high incidence, and the Kosh-Agachsky area was assigned to the group with a low incidence.
Conclusions: Using the connectionist model it was established that during 5-year period (2013–2017) forecasting levels of tickborne encephalitis incidence exceeded the actual ones with average relative error ±0.1 and were 9.18 per 100 thousand population on average. During this period the difference in absolute values of prognostic and actual values was ten cases (i.e. two cases per year). The difference between these indicators, taking into account the small average relative error, can be explained by unaccounted cases of tickborne infections, which are clinical manifestations of tickborne encephalitis and are considered by ICD-10 as “fever of unknown origin” (R50).