Document Type
Article
Abstract
Tick-borne diseases including rickettsial diseases are increasing in incidence worldwide. Many rickettsial pathogens can cause disease which is commonly underdiagnosed and underreported; Rickettsia pathogens in the spotted fever group (SFGR) are thus classified as neglected bacterial pathogens. The Central American region shoulders a large proportion of the global neglected disease burden; however, little is known regarding SFGR disease here. Although development varies, four of the seven countries in this region have both the highest poverty rates and SFGR disease burdens (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua), compared to Belize, Panama, and Costa Rica. Utilizing the Human Development Index (HDI), we compared published articles related to SFGR Rickettsia prevalence in the lowest-HDI-scoring countries to the highest-HDI-scoring countries. Our analysis identified a distinct dichotomy in publication, and by proxy, potentially awareness and knowledge of SFGR tick-borne disease in Central America, where the least-developed countries are at the highest risk for, yet the most vulnerable to, SFGR disease.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Publication Info
Published in Insects, Volume 13, Issue 8, 2022, pages 674-.
Rights
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
APA Citation
Dye-Braumuller, K. C., Rodríguez Aquino, M. S., Self, S. C. W., Kanyangarara, M., & Nolan, M. S. (2022). Spotted Fever Group Rickettsioses in Central America: The Research and Public Health Disparity among Socioeconomic Lines. Insects, 13(8), 674. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13080674