We are looking for up to 4,000 people between the ages of 5 and 69 (as of December 31, 2026) from the Amberg-Sulzbach and Schwandorf districts.

Participants will find out whether they already have antibodies against TBE or Lyme disease.

Participation is free and can be done conveniently from home. After registering online, participants will receive a test kit. They will use it to collect a small blood sample from their fingertip. The sample is then tested in the lab for antibodies against the pathogens.

Prof. Noemi Castelletti, Ph.D., project coordinator and head of the Data Science Unit at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the LMU University Hospital Munich, calls for participation on behalf of the researchers: “The districts of Amberg-Sulzbach and Schwandorf are among those in Bavaria with particularly high numbers of TBE and Lyme disease cases. As a result, they are now serving as model districts to better understand transmission via ticks. We hope for active participation from the districts of Amberg-Sulzbach and Schwandorf. The more people from the region who participate in the MONID HABITRACK cohort study, the more meaningful the results will be. This will allow us to investigate more precisely how frequently tick-borne infections actually occur in these districts and which factors influence the risk of infection. Based on these findings, measures to protect against tick-borne infections will be improved. Another goal is to apply the insights gained to other regions.”

In addition to the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at LMU University Hospital, leading experts based in Bavaria are conducting research for the project, including those from the German Consultative Laboratory for TBE (DKF) in Munich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology ITMP, Immunology, Infection, and Pandemic Research IIP in Penzberg/Munich, the Chair of Global Urbanization and Remote Sensing, Earth Observation Research Cluster at the Institute of Geography and Geology of Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (JMU), and the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) with the National Reference Center for Borrelia.