Phylogeographic characterization of tick-borne encephalitis virus from patients, rodents and ticks in Slovenia.

Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is the most important arboviral agent causing infections of the central nervous system in central Europe. Previous studies have shown that TBEV exhibits pronounced genetic variability, which is often correlated to the geographical origin of TBEV. Genetic variability of TBEV has previously been studied predominantly in rodents and ticks, while information about the variability in patients is scarce.

The toxicity of composted sediments from Mediterranean ports evaluated by several bioassays.

This work investigates the ecotoxicological evaluation of contaminated dredged sediments from French Mediterranean navy harbour (A), commercial port (B) and two composite specimens (C) and (D) coming from the mixture of A and B with other port sediments. The toxicity of elutriates from these sediments is estimated using embryo-toxicity test, Microtox® solid phase test, LuminoTox, phytotoxicity tests and genotoxicity test. Bioassay responses are not clearly correlated with chemical contamination in the whole sediment and vary as a function of tested organisms.

Prevalence and molecular characterization of tick-borne encephalitis virus in Ixodes ricinus ticks collected in Slovenia.

The hard tick Ixodes ricinus is the principal vector of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) in Slovenia; but until now, there was no information about the prevalence of TBEV infection in Slovenian ticks. We conducted a 2-year survey in 2005 and 2006, during which we were collecting I. ricinus ticks monthly in eight different locations of Slovenia.

Influence of climatic factors on dynamics of questing Ixodes ricinus ticks in Slovenia.

Ixodes ricinus is a vector of pathogens that cause many diseases in Europe and Slovenia: tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), anaplasmosis, borreliosis, babesiosis and others. The risk for contracting these diseases depends strongly on the density of the infected questing ticks and many studies have investigated tick population dynamics and the parameters affecting them. They have shown a clear influence of climatic and landscape arrangements in the microhabitat on tick abundance and dynamics and therefore on transmission of pathogens important in human and veterinary medicine.