Se. Randolph, The shifting landscape of tick-borne zoonoses: tick-borne encephalitis andLyme borreliosis in Europe, PHI T ROY B, 356(1411), 2001, pp. 1045-1056
Citations number
82
Categorie Soggetti
Multidisciplinary,"Experimental Biology
Journal title
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON SERIES B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
The two major vector-borne diseases of northern temperate regions, tick-bor
ne encephalitis (TBE) and Lyme borreliosis (LB), show very different epidem
iological patterns, but both have increased significantly in incidence sinc
e the 1980s. Insight into the temporal dynamics of TBE, gained from statist
ical analysis of spatial patterns integrated with biological explanation, s
uggests that the recent increases in TBE cases in Central Europe and the Ba
ltic States may have arisen largely from changes in human behaviour that ha
ve brought more people into contact with infected ticks. Under forecast cli
mate change scenarios, it is predicted that enzootic cycles of TBE virus ma
y not survive along the southern edge of their present range, e.g. in Slove
nia, Croatia and Hungary, where case numbers are indeed decreasing. New foc
i, however, are predicted and have been observed in Scandinavia. At the sam
e time, human impact on the landscape, increasing both the habitat and wild
life hosts of ticks, has allowed tick populations to multiply significantly
. This probably accounts for a genuine emergence of LB, with its high poten
tial transmission rate, in both the USA and Europe, although the rate of em
ergence has been exaggerated by improved surveillance and diagnosis.