A handful of people have fallen ill in harpest in Västerbotten

It is not uncommon for a few individual patients to suffer from harpest, and every year some individual county residents usually get sick. But in some years, significantly more people may be affected.

- We have isolated cases annually, 2015 was a record year, then we had over 200 cases, says Gunilla Persson, assistant infection control physician at Region Västerbotten.

If there is any major outbreak in Västerbotten this year, Persson thinks it is too early to say.

- It has not culminated yet, it usually is in September, so it is still too early to say what it will be this year, she says.

Most often the disease appears as a wound after a mosquito bite. It looks characteristic, a wheezing wound, and the patient becomes ill in high fever and the lymph nodes can swell.

To minimize the risk of being infected, Gunilla Persson believes that you should avoid mosquito bites, faeces and urine from animals, and avoid dealing with dead animals. If you are presumed to be infected by the infection, you should seek care as it is a bacterial disease that can be cured with antibiotics.