A compilation of ticks and tick-borne pathogen distributions in seven countries within North and West Africa from 1901 to 2022: a systematic literature review

This systematic review highlights notable surveillance gaps that vary by country and region. While Morocco, Nigeria, and Senegal report numerous studies concerning tick diversity, certain regions appear oversampled, while reports from other regions are largely absent. Information on the ticks of Sierra Leone and Niger remains largely uncharacterized. Across all target countries, reports are heavily biased toward sampling and testing ticks collected from domestic animals. Future tick surveillance efforts need to include sampling and testing of ticks collected from the environment and wildlife species to obtain a more complete assessment of tick distribution and tick-borne pathogen ecology.