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Vector-borne diseases are a constantly renewed threat to human health. Vectors adaptation, climate change, environment modifications, globalization, urbanization, promote the persistence or even the emergence and diffusion of these infectious risks. In Brazil, today’s preoccupations are focused on Aedes transmitted arboviruses. The country is facing the rise of dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and the persistence of yellow fever. Other vector-borne diseases such as schistosomiasis, persist around the irrigated perimeters of Sao Francisco River. The spatial dynamics of these diseases underline the role of the structuring of spaces, the functioning of networks, the growth of urbanization, and the supply of care, echoing studies carried out around vector-borne diseases, in other places and on other continents. By recalling the geographical teachings resulting from some interdisciplinary work examples, we propose to renew the focus on vector-borne diseases by confronting experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, or even then South American borders.

This article seeks to recover the origins of health geography, from the production of the first disease maps to the incorporation of new spatial analysis techniques in the last decades. This evolution has also been accompanied by a profound review of paradigms, theories and methods, with a greater emphasis on the relationship between man and the environment, and with approaches that relate socio-spatial structure to health problems at the various scales where they manifest themselves. The current health geography is confronted with the need to articulate the association between the health-disease process and the disease-care binomial, in search of equity, prevention of diseases and diseases and health promotion.

Vector-borne diseases are a constantly renewed threat to human health. Vectors adaptation, climate change, environment modifications, globalization, urbanization, promote the persistence or even the emergence and diffusion of these infectious risks. In Brazil, today’s preoccupations are focused on Aedes transmitted arboviruses. The country is facing the rise of dengue, Zika, Chikungunya and the persistence of yellow fever. Other vector-borne diseases such as schistosomiasis, persist around the irrigated perimeters of Sao Francisco River. The spatial dynamics of these diseases underline the role of the structuring of spaces, the functioning of networks, the growth of urbanization, and the supply of care, echoing studies carried out around vector-borne diseases, in other places and on other continents. By recalling the geographical teachings resulting from some interdisciplinary work examples, we propose to renew the focus on vector-borne diseases by confronting experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, or even then South American borders.