Tuberculosis in people with rheumatic disease in Finland 1995-2007: a nationwide retrospective register study.

Objectives: RA and its medication, especially TNF-α inhibitors, increase the risk of clinical tuberculosis (TB) infection. We aimed to investigate the clinical manifestations, incidence and temporal changes in TB occurring concurrently with rheumatic diseases (RDs) between 1995 and 2007.

Methods: We combined the register of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland and the National Infectious Disease Register to find adult patients with reimbursed DMARDs and with a TB notification between 1995 and 2007.

[Tick-borne encephalitis in Finland from 2010 to 2012].

The frequency of occurrence of tick-borne encephalitis has increased significantly in Europe and Finland during the past twenty years. There has been a suspicion that the Finnish cases have at least over the last few years been more severe than described in the literature. We analyzed the approximately one hundred cases of tick-borne encephalitis diagnosed in Finland over a three-year period.

Bloodstream infections among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis: a prospective study from the onset of disease.

Objectives: To describe the incidence and nature of bloodstream infections (BSI) among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) followed-up prospectively from disease onset.

Methods: The Social Insurance Institution's (SII) national register on individuals with reimbursement for medication of chronic diseases was used to identify children with JIA from 2004 through 2011 and their medications. The National Infectious Disease Register (NIDR) collects data of all blood culture positive samples from all microbiology laboratories in Finland.

[A domestic human case of hepatitis E in Finland].

We describe the first verified domestic HEV case in a previously healthy 53-year-old man who presented a three-day history of upper stomach pain, nausea, fever, arthralgia and fatigue. At the first phase laboratory tests revealed high levels of AST and ALT and at the second phase high levels of bilirubin. Serum was positive for anti-HEV IgM and for HEV RNA confirming the diagnosis of acute hepatitis E.