We report the case of a 20-year-old male complaining of sudden-onset, severe headaches, fever, chills, and generalized arthralgia. He had no symptoms of a respiratory tract infection. Blood examination revealed severe leukopenia and mild to moderate thrombocytopenia. Onset of symptoms was rapid, intense, and occurred only a few hours after routine tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) booster vaccine. The question of a relationship between booster vaccine administration and the febrile illness with bicytopenia was raised. A broad range of diagnostics excluded infections and other causes for bicytopenia. Symptoms resolved within a few days, and blood counts normalized within two weeks. Due to the close temporal relationship, a transient benign bicytopenia and febrile illness as a systemic reaction to TBE vaccination was assumed. Review of the literature and adverse event reporting systems suggest that this is a very rare reaction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.