Department of Infectious Diseases and Neuroinfections, Medical University of Białystok, Żurawia 14, 15-540, Białystok, Poland.
Department of Statistics and Medical Informatics, Medical University of Białystok, Szpitalna 37, 15-295 Białystok, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2020 Apr 24;10(1):6975. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-63883-y.
Tick-borne diseases are a major threat to human and animal health. An increasing number of natural habitats have been transformed into urban areas by human activity; hence, the number of reported tick bites in urban and suburban areas has risen. This retrospective analysis evaluated 53 scientific reports concerning infections of Ixodes ricinus ticks collected from urban and suburban areas of Europe between 1991 and 2017. The results indicate significant differences in many variables, including a higher number of Anaplasma phagocytophilum infections in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. The opposite result was observed for Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis infections. A comparison of climate zones revealed that Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. infections have the greatest median incidence rate in subtropical climate zones. No statistical significance was found when comparing other tick-borne pathogens (TBPs), such as Borrelia miyamotoi, Rickettsia spp., Babesia spp., Bartonella spp., Ehrlichia spp., Coxiella burnetii and Francisella tularensis. The analysis also showed significant differences in the overall prevalence of TBPs according to average temperatures and rainfall across Europe. This retrospective study contributes to the knowledge on the occurrence and prevalence of TBPs in urbanized areas of Europe and their dependence on the habitats and geographical distributions of ticks. Due to the increased risk of tick bites, it is of great importance to investigate infections in ticks from urban and suburban areas.
蜱传疾病对人类和动物的健康构成重大威胁。由于人类活动，越来越多的自然栖息地已转变为城市地区；因此，城市和郊区报告的蜱叮咬数量有所增加。本回顾性分析评估了 1991 年至 2017 年间从欧洲城市和郊区采集的 53 份关于伊希氏硬蜱感染的科学报告。结果表明，许多变量存在显著差异，包括东欧的嗜吞噬细胞无形体感染数量高于西欧。相反的结果在候选新立克次体感染中观察到。对气候带的比较表明，在亚热带气候带，伯氏疏螺旋体感染的中位发病率最高。在比较其他蜱传病原体（TBPs）时，如伯氏疏螺旋体、立克次体、巴贝虫、巴尔通体、埃立克体、贝氏考克斯氏体和土拉弗朗西斯菌时，没有发现统计学意义。分析还表明，根据欧洲各地的平均温度和降雨量，TBPs 的总体流行率存在显著差异。这项回顾性研究有助于了解欧洲城市化地区 TBPs 的发生和流行情况及其对蜱栖息地和地理分布的依赖关系。由于蜱叮咬的风险增加，调查城市和郊区蜱中的感染情况非常重要。
