Conclusions

Sandfly-borne viral pathogens are widespread in both old and new worlds particularly in tropical/subtropical areas, and temperate zones including southern Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Central and South America [24].

Figure 1.

Schematic overview of the sandfly-brone viruses, according to geographical regions.

New World Sandfly-borne phleboviruses of demonstrated medical importance

Table 1.

Features of the medically important sandfly-borne viruses.

Both molecular characterization and Seroepidemiological studies demon­strated broad distribution of sandfly-borne phleboviruses in the old world in the Mediterranean region, in the African continent, in the Indian subcontinent, in the Middle East and in Central Asia. However, the pathogen sandfly-borne phlebovi­ruses were recorded in the limited geographical area (Panama) in the new world with sporadic human cases. This must be due to (i) limited investigations in the new world; (ii) vector competence of phlebovirus in the new world; (iii) small-sized human population and (iv) lack of case report.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the European Virus Archive goes Global (EVAg) project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 653316. Nazli Ayhan is a Post-Doctoral fellow supported by a IRD grant.