Spain: 102 human tularemia cases reported in Palencia province
In Palencia province, about 190 km north of Madrid in northern Spain, has already confirmed 102 tularemia patients in 2024, accounting for practically three out of every four cases detected in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, according to the data released November 8, by the Ministry of Health of the Junta de Castilla y León.
Since the first case was confirmed in March, the province has led the incidence of the outbreak, so closely linked to the proliferation of the common vole, a species that is a vector of contagion.
Burgos, León and Valladolid are, at a considerable distance from Palencia, the three territories in the region with the most cases (fourteen, ten and four, respectively).
Although it has not reached the incidence of outbreaks as serious as those of 1997-98 and 2007, tularemia has returned this year in our community and, more markedly, in the province of Palencia. Field workers have been the most exposed segment of the population, but mere environmental exposure in the rural environment has generated many of the cases, especially in the summer period, when there are more people in the towns and more outdoor activities are carried out (walks around the area, fishing, gardening).
Subscribe to Outbreak News TV on YouTube
Not by chance, the peak of tularemia cases occurred in the transition from the months of July to August, just when there is more population in the rural environment, but since then a trickle of positive cases has continued. In the last month, practically one has been confirmed every three days in the whole community; far from the twenty cases that were reached that week 31, in the middle of summer.
The reports of the General Directorate of Public Health of the Junta highlight that the exposure factors are linked to field activities such as agricultural tasks (mowing and baling straw, mainly), but also to gardening, cleaning ditches and contact with rodents.
Practically, for every case in a woman (19.6% of the total) there are four in men (80.4%). The average age of those infected is quite advanced, 56 years and three months, but there are cases from very early ages (eight years, the youngest) to elderly people of 92 years. The range with the highest incidence is that of adults from 55 to 64 years, with almost one in four cases (24.6%). However, among men, the most common range is the immediately preceding one, from 45 to 54 years.