ABSTRACT

Environmental and bio-ecological changes, some administrative and political mistakes, and global warming seriously affect the behaviors of ticks in Turkey and globally. The global public sensitivity toward tick infestations has increased along with increases in tick-borne diseases (TBDs). Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed a new political concept, “One Health,” for specific struggle strategies against tick infestations and TBDs. To highlight the importance of the issue, the WHO had declared the year 2015 for vector-borne diseases and adopted the slogan “small bites big threat”. In global struggle strategies, the epidemiological aspects and dynamics of increasing tick populations and their effects on the incidence of the TBDs mainly with zoonotic characteristics have been specifically targeted. In Turkey, during the last century, approximately 47 tick species, including eight soft and 39 hard tick species in three and six genera belonging to Argasidae and Ixodidae, respectively, had already been reported. In this article, the recorded tick species, regional infestations, and medical and veterinary importance in Turkey were chronologically reviewed based on a 100-year period between 1916 and 2016.

Keywords: A century-old period, current status, ticks, Turkey