Sophia Papageorgiou

Three potentially devastating tick-borne diseases (Lyme disease- LD; tick-borne encephalitis- TBE; and granulocytic anaplasmosis- GA) have emerged in the past two decades in some of the poorest, underdeveloped regions globally. One economically marginal region suffering the impact of emerging tick-borne disease is the Inner Mongolia province of China, an autonomous region along the country’s northern border, adjacent to Mongolia. In this Chinese province, human LD and GA infections have been documented and ticks carrying the infections have been identified. Recently, coinfections with GA and LD have been discovered in northern China. The reservoir mammalian hosts and transmission mechanisms for these diseases need to be determined in order to provide recommendations for surveillance and public health programs.

Inner Mongolia has a population of 24 million people. The economy in this region is based on the industries of forestry and agriculture, coal, iron, and steel. Recently there has been extensive degradation of old-growth forests through over-harvesting, which probably contributed to the recent emergence of tick-borne diseases. These changes may initiate a cascade of events ultimately resulting in the emergence of disease-transmitting arthropods (e.g. ticks) and infectiousdiseases. Thespecific question we are interested in addressing is how forest changes affect the ecology of, and health of local communities due to emerging LD, GA, and TBE near Chao-Er in Inner Mongolia. The question will be evaluated by measuring disease risk in degraded and undegraded forests through quantitative measurements on forest richness, tick density, reservoir host, and determining tick-borne disease diversity and prevalence in reservoir, vector, and livestock species.

Email: spapageorgiou@ucdavis.edu