Proposal for an Annual “World Medical Entomology Day” to Honour a Discipline Critical to Global Health

Abstract

Vector-borne diseases remain among the most persistent and dynamic threats to glob­al health. According to the World Health Organ­ization (WHO), these diseases account for more than 700,000 deaths an­nually and im­pose a dis­proportionate bur­den on tropical and subtropi­cal populations, particularly in low- and mid­dle-income countries (1). Mos­quitoes, ticks, sand flies, triatomines, black flies and other hema­tophagous arthropods transmit pathogens re­spon­sible for malaria, dengue, lymphatic fila­riasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, yellow fe­ver, Zika, chikungunya, tick-borne encephali­tis and numerous emerging zoon­oses. Rapid urbani­zation, globalization, en­vironmental deg­rada­tion, climate change and insecticide re­sistance are reshaping the epidemiology and geographic distribution of these infections, in­creasing both their incidence and unpredict­ability (2, 3).