Sand fly fever: An important vector-borne diseases for travelers?

Ali Mehrabi Tavana

Annals of Tropical Medicine and Public Health 2017 10(1):13-15

Context: Sand fly fever is a vector-borne viral infection and is endemic in many parts of the world, particularly in areas that are infected with different types of leishmaniasis. Clinical spectrum ranges from asymptomatic infection to very high fever and photophobia in patients. During the last decades, an increase in imported sand fly fever cases in developed and nonendemic countries have been pointed out from an international literature review. Among the possible causes are increasing international travelers, travel of immigrants from endemic area, and army operations. It has been noted that the main region for the diseases are west of Asia and east of Europe, and perhaps imported cases may be seen clinically in different parts of the world, either in developed or in developing countries. Materials and Methods: Two methods were used to gather the information for this article. First, PubMed was searched for English language references to published relevant articles. Second, the term sand fly fever was searched on Google Scholar too. Results: In PubMed, 156 articles and in Google Scholar, 70,400 articles mentioned the term sand fly fever. The most searched items in PubMed were epidemiology, treatment, prevention, and life cycle with incidences of 41.66, 20.51, 13.46, and 1.92%, respectively, and in terms of geographical distribution of the study, the maximum number of articles in PubMed were published from Europe, Asia, Australia, and America, with percentages being 26.92, 17.30, 17.0, 1.28, and 1.28%, respectively. Conclusion: Different countries have reported the disease either as an endemic or as an imported one. co-infection. Sand fly fever must be considered in the diagnostic assessment of patients presenting with a similar clinical syndrome and a history of travel to an endemic area, which are mentioned above. Adventure travelers, researchers, military personnel, and other groups of travelers likely to be exposed to sand flies in endemic areas; these travelers should receive counseling regarding sand fly fever appropriate protective health measures. In this review article sand fly fever situation will be studied.

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