Parasites and wildlife in a changing world: The vector-host- pathogen interaction as a learning case

Rizzoli, Annapaola; Tagliapietra, Valentina; Cagnacci, Francesca; Marini, Giovanni; Arnoldi, Daniele; Rosso, Fausta; Rosà, Roberto

Over the past four decades, TBE has become a growing public health challenge in Europe and parts of Asia. It is a neurological zoonotic infection with various degree of severity caused by TBEV which includes three subtypes: European (TBEV-Eur), Siberian (TBEV-Sib) and Far-Eastern (TBEV-FE) (Simmonds et al., 2012) . Humans are infected sporadically, either by a tick bite or by ingestion of infected raw milk or milk products (Dorko et al., 2018) . Other mammals (e.g. ruminants, carnivores) can also be infected, but most of the time do not show clinical signs. The hard ticks Ixodes ricinus, I. persulcatus, Dermacentor reticulatus and Haemaphysalis concinna are known vectors of TBEV in Europe. Ixodes ricinus mainly carry the TBEV-Eur variant in central and north-eastern Europe (Dobler et al., 2012) . However, in recent years new transmission cycles have been reported as in the case of the isolation of TBEV-Sib subtype in this tick species within a new foci of emergence (Jääskeläinen et al., 2016) .