Climate Changes and Tick-Borne Disease Expansion in West Africa

Dear Colleagues,

Since the early 1970s, a drought cycle has persisted in Sub-Saharan Africa without equivalence elsewhere in the world. When compared to 1947–1968, the average annual rainfall in this region has decreased by 200 mm. In recent decades, several emerging and re-emerging tick-borne diseases have appeared in naïve animal and human populations in West Africa, prompting efforts to combat those that pose serious health risks to humans and animals: Lyme disease, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), relapsing fever, cowdriosis, and other protozoan diseases.

The reasons for the emergence and re-emergence of these diseases, particularly in West Africa, include inter-annual climate change and variation, anthropization, deforestation, and the precarious balance in Sahelian environments, all of which have resulted in a convergence of wild and domestic epidemiological cycles. The emergence of such diseases in humans and domestic animals is facilitated by new or more intense contact between wild and domestic populations through the intermediary of tick vectors. Temperature changes, as well as rainfall intensity and variability, are assumed to have significant effects on the vectorial capacity of arthropod vectors of viral, bacterial, and parasitic diseases. Our current understanding of the current chorology of ticks, especially those known to be vectors of pathogenic agents, appears to be indispensable in light of climatic change (i.e., temperature, hygrometry), which underlies their current and future distribution and the risk of the emergence of their carried pathogenic agents.

In the aftermath of the south latitude extension of CCHF virus in West Africa and the emergence of cowdriosis in West Africa, biosurveillance and preparedness are needed in West Africa, as it is a global concern and concerns the growing awareness of the urgency for research and intervention against tick-borne-diseases.

This Special Issue, entitled ‘Climate Changes and Tick-Borne Disease Expansion in West Africa’, will be published in the One Health Section of the Journal Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease. For this Special Issue, authors are invited to submit original research articles, clinical studies, and review articles in the area of tick-borne diseases. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Biosurveillance of pathogenic tick-borne viruses and bacteria: A One Health approach.
• Spatial and temporal epidemiology: Unveiling hazard and vulnerability.
• Virus and bacteria genetics (phylogenetics, next-generation sequencing) and multiple infections: Understanding the molecular basis of pathogen complexes.
• Genetics and ecology of reservoirs and tick vectors: The host-pathogen complex.
• Pathogenesis: Infection patterns (natural, chronic, subclinical, etc.) and mechanisms of transmission (direct, indirect, etc.).

Dr. Massamba Sylla
Dr. Cheikh Sadibou Sokhna
Prof. Dr. Benjamin Obukowho Emikpe
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• tick-borne diseases
• vectors
• host-pathogen interaction
• Lyme disease
• Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF)
• relapsing fever
• cowdriosis
• climate change
• one health