The article described an outbreak of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in Hungary in August 2007, where 25 people became ill after drinking raw, unpasteurized goat milk from the same farm. None of the patients had been bitten by ticks, which is the usual way TBE is transmitted. Researchers investigated the outbreak by testing blood samples from the farm’s goats using several laboratory methods to find out which animals might have spread the virus through their milk. They found that one goat was actively infected and could have been the source. The study highlighted that consuming raw milk can be risky in areas where TBE is common, and that pasteurization would prevent such infections. The authors also noted that public awareness about the dangers of raw milk and the importance of vaccination against TBE was low, even in regions where the disease is known to occur.
I was invited to contribute to this publication because of my collaboration with virologists and epidemiologists at the Hungarian surveillance institute. I was not involved in the field investigation itself but contributed to the interpretation of the results. Somewhat unexpectedly, the paper was highly cited in the following decade, likely reflecting sustained interest in milk‑borne transmission routes and the ongoing challenges of laboratory methods in this area.