A geographical perspective on ticks and associated disease risk in Belgium
(2023)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- Vanwambeke, Sophie O
- Abstract
- Nature provides many benefits for human health. However, they also harbour zoonoses, diseases that usually circulate in animals and may be transmitted to humans. Many tick-borne pathogens, such as the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis, are transmitted by the bite of an infected tick. They constitute a complex system involving multiple agents that interact in the environment: pathogens, hosts, ticks, and humans. The interconnectedness between humans, animals and the environ-ments and their influence on health calls for an integrated collaborative framework such as One Health. The general objective of the thesis was to assess tick-borne disease risk in Belgium using a One Health approach. To account for the complexity of tick-borne disease ecology, we used datasets covering all components of the system, and methods ranging from mixed-effect regressions to multi-criteria decision analyses and Bayesian spatial models. We studied environmental determi-nants of tick abundance and infection at the forest scale in the Bois de Lauzelle in Louvain-la-Neuve. Our tick collections allowed investigating spatial and temporal variability in tick abundance and tick infection prevalence, and identify tick-associated micro-bacterial communities. We also used surveillance serological data for Walloon cattle to create a spatial index identifying the risk of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in pastures. Finally, by combining environmental predictors of tick bite risk, we created a risk map for Belgian municipalities and compared the results with crowd-sourced tick bite incidence data. This dissertation underlined the advantages of using an integrated multi-level One Health approach to assess the risk of tick-borne disease.
- Affiliations
Citations
Rousseau, R. (2023). A geographical perspective on ticks and associated disease risk in Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/100673