One for All and All for One Health: the need for concerted efforts for understanding and control of tick-borne diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a vast territory with a very heterogeneous environment and a complex socio-ethnical structure. SSA includes most of the poorest countries worldwide. About 70% of all people work in agriculture and the majority of SSA population is, at least partially dependent, on livestock. One of the widely agreed solutions to fight poverty is to increase agricultural productivity, including livestock and animal production. Infectious diseases stand out as a major health constrains in humans and domestic animals in SSA. Among these, tick-borne diseases (TBD) (e.g.Theilerioses and Babesioses, African Swine Fever, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Anaplasmosis, Cowdriosis-Ehrlichiosis, and Tick Relapsing Fever) are particularly important due to their high morbidity and mortality rates, as well as for the zoonotic impact of some of these diseases. Recent advances in diagnostic and research tools (i.e. high throughput molecular techniques-NGS, qPCR chips; GISremote sensing data, epidemiological modeling, etc.) have open a new range of opportunities. However, concerted implementation of these tools for the development and execution of TBD control strategies in SSA is still widely deficient. The results from our recent research and cooperation work in SSA (http://www.tickbornezoonoses.org; www.geo-parasite.org; http://www.vsf-cz.eu/en/projects/mt-kulal-rabies-control) in the field of animal and public health highlighted the need to focus not only on the pathogens of great economic and medical importance, but also on neglected vectors, pathogens and diseases, including zoonoses, as well as on neglected geographic areas Understanding the diversity of vectors and pathogens and their ecoepidemiological mechanisms is impossible to address without model sites and identification of sentinel species. Beside the field work and laboratory detection of pathogens and vectors, there is a need for inventory of existing data that are scattered in literature, databases and project reports. A new pan-European collaborative network (www.eurnegvec.org) has recently agreed to continue, adapt, join and expand the existing databases and to promote the seamless interaction between specialists in the field of neglected vectors and vector-borne diseases under the umbrella of One-Health.