The World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7 April, date of foundation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948. Each year a theme that points out a priority area of public health is chosen. The theme of World Health Day 2014 is vector-borne diseases.
Vectors are organisms that transmit pathogens and parasites of an infected person (or animal) person to another. Vector-borne diseases are diseases caused by these pathogens and parasites in human population, more common in tropical regions, where access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation is problematic.
The most lethal vector-borne disease, malaria, is estimated to have caused 660,000 deaths in 2010, mostly children in Africa. However, the most increasing disease in number of victims worldwide is dengue, whose incidence has increased 30 times in the last 50 years. The globalization of commerce and rapid movement between continents, as well as changes in the environment such as climate change and urbanization have had great impact on the transmission of vector-borne diseases, including appearance in countries where it was formerly unknown.
World Health Day 2014 aims to put in evidence some of the most popular vectors – such as mosquitoes , insects , ticks, snails and bloodsucking insects – responsible for the transmission of a large number of parasites and pathogens that attack humans or animal. Mosquitoes, for example, not only transmit malaria and dengue fever, but also lymphatic filariasis, some types of viral encephalitis and yellow fever. Other vectors transmit Chagas disease , leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and trachoma , among others.
BIREME/PAHO/WHO recommends access to scientific and technical documents and information sources in the Virtual Health Library (VHL) on vector-borne diseases.
