Systematic literature review on the occurrence of ticks and tick‐borne pathogens in the EU and Mediterranean Basin

Abstract

A systematic literature review (SR) was carried out to review the occurrence of tick-borne pathogens and tick species with proven involvement in the transmission of pathogens in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The SR was carried out between 22/06/2011 and 23/02/2012. The report describes all the steps carried out in the SR, namely, the method proposed for searching research studies and data sources used for this purpose; the criteria chosen for selecting relevant and eligible studies and the obtained results from the data extraction of the eligible papers. Furthermore, an evaluation of the methodological quality of the eligible studies was performed. A total of 2246 publications were submitted to a first screening for their relevance on title and abstract. The used relevance criteria for the first relevance screening were the questions if the papers concerned the occurrence of tick species or a tick-borne pathogen in the considered area; the role as vector of a tick species; geographic information on distribution of the tick species or the tick-borne pathogen and if the paper concerned the article a primary study. Subsequently, a total of 1166 papers that were considered relevant, were subject to a second screening eligibility on the full text, using the following criteria: the article specify a specific geographic location (e.g. geographic coordinates, name of municipality or nuts 1, 2 or 3 levels). The second screening of relevance was made on 940 papers using the following criteria: the paper does not refer to an imported tick or pathogen; the paper report data on residence of human patient; the tick or pathogen identification is unequivocal and appropriate. 1