Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco

In North Africa, Argasid ticks of the Ornithodoros erraticus complex are the only known vector of Borrelia infections causing tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) in humans. There is limited data on vector distribution, the animal reservoir of the disease has never been investigated, and there is no pu...

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Main Authors:	Diatta, Georges, Souidi, Yassine, Granjon, Laurent, Arnathau, Céline, Durand, Patrick, Chauvancy, Gilles, Mané, Youssouph, Sarih, M'hammed, Belghyti, Driss, Renaud, François, Trape, Jean-François
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2012
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441398/

id	pubmed-3441398
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-34413982012-10-01 Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco Diatta, Georges Souidi, Yassine Granjon, Laurent Arnathau, Céline Durand, Patrick Chauvancy, Gilles Mané, Youssouph Sarih, M'hammed Belghyti, Driss Renaud, François Trape, Jean-François Research Article In North Africa, Argasid ticks of the Ornithodoros erraticus complex are the only known vector of Borrelia infections causing tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) in humans. There is limited data on vector distribution, the animal reservoir of the disease has never been investigated, and there is no published data on TBRF patients. Our aim was to systematically investigate the distribution of O. erraticus s.l. in most regions of Morocco, to measure the proportion of infected ticks, to identify small mammalian species that act as potential reservoir, and to analyze data on TBRF patients fortuitously collected during a malaria eradication program. Our study shows that a high proportion of rodent burrows are colonized by vector ticks in all regions of Morocco from the Atlantic Sahara to the Mediterranean coast. We identified three Borrelia species in ticks and/or small mammals: B. hispanica, B. crocidurae and B. merionesi. We report five species of small mammals found infected for the first time. Our analysis of 102 TBRF patients shows that the disease is strictly seasonal in northwestern Morocco with a maximum incidence during summer. We believe that TBRF, although rarely diagnosed, is a common cause of morbidity in all regions of Morocco. Public Library of Science 2012-09-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3441398/ /pubmed/23029574 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001810 Text en © 2012 Diatta et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Diatta, Georges Souidi, Yassine Granjon, Laurent Arnathau, Céline Durand, Patrick Chauvancy, Gilles Mané, Youssouph Sarih, M'hammed Belghyti, Driss Renaud, François Trape, Jean-François
spellingShingle	Diatta, Georges Souidi, Yassine Granjon, Laurent Arnathau, Céline Durand, Patrick Chauvancy, Gilles Mané, Youssouph Sarih, M'hammed Belghyti, Driss Renaud, François Trape, Jean-François Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
author_facet	Diatta, Georges Souidi, Yassine Granjon, Laurent Arnathau, Céline Durand, Patrick Chauvancy, Gilles Mané, Youssouph Sarih, M'hammed Belghyti, Driss Renaud, François Trape, Jean-François
author_sort	Diatta, Georges
title	Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
title_short	Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
title_full	Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
title_fullStr	Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
title_full_unstemmed	Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco
title_sort	epidemiology of tick-borne borreliosis in morocco
description	In North Africa, Argasid ticks of the Ornithodoros erraticus complex are the only known vector of Borrelia infections causing tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) in humans. There is limited data on vector distribution, the animal reservoir of the disease has never been investigated, and there is no published data on TBRF patients. Our aim was to systematically investigate the distribution of O. erraticus s.l. in most regions of Morocco, to measure the proportion of infected ticks, to identify small mammalian species that act as potential reservoir, and to analyze data on TBRF patients fortuitously collected during a malaria eradication program. Our study shows that a high proportion of rodent burrows are colonized by vector ticks in all regions of Morocco from the Atlantic Sahara to the Mediterranean coast. We identified three Borrelia species in ticks and/or small mammals: B. hispanica, B. crocidurae and B. merionesi. We report five species of small mammals found infected for the first time. Our analysis of 102 TBRF patients shows that the disease is strictly seasonal in northwestern Morocco with a maximum incidence during summer. We believe that TBRF, although rarely diagnosed, is a common cause of morbidity in all regions of Morocco.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2012
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441398/
_version_	1611908467845496832

Epidemiology of Tick-Borne Borreliosis in Morocco

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