What Makes Ticks Tick? Climate Change, Ticks, and Tick‐Borne Diseases

Over the past decades, tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), Lyme Borreliosis (LB), and other tick-borne diseases (TBDs) have become a growing public health problem in Europe and other parts of the world. In Europe, 90% to 95% of all tick bite incidences in humans are caused by Ixodes (I) ricinus (in Eastern Europe by persulcatus). Neglecting the large number of unreported cases, 100,000 to 150,000 of these incidences become manifest as LB and between 10,000 and 15,000 as TBE. TBE virus (TBEV) is endemic in regions of 27 European countries and the number of risk areas has increased every year.2 TBEV is also endemic in some parts of Japan, China, and Mongolia. Hence, there are severe health problems for inhabitants and travelers. TBE is predominantly reported in humans and seldom in dogs and horses. Recently, a clinical case of TBE was described in a monkey after natural exposition. The reason for this development is not quite clear, but it can be stated for certain that global warming causes some of these dramatic changes.4 Recent stringent data were discussed in this article. However, there are additional factors to be considered, such as social and political changes in agricultural production and in leisure time and an increase in traveling, which in turn leads to a higher exposition rate.