2 METHODOLOGY FOR RETRIEVAL OF THE EVIDENCE
To provide hints and hypothesis about the possibilities of ticks to
transmit SARS-CoV-2, the evidence within a systematic review was
captured. The considered evidence was the 1st January
1970 to the 1st June 2020. Medline; Scopus; EMBASE;
Google Scholar, Scifinder and the WHO Institutional Repository databases
were analysed. Information sharing
was achieved by using variations of the following search strategy:
Transmission: “coronavirus/ Runde coronavirus-like transmitted
by ticks” or “SARS-CoV transmitted by ticks” or “SARS-CoV-2
transmitted by ticks” or “Covid-19 transmitted by ticks”.
Structure: “coronavirus/ Runde coronavirus-like structure
ticks” or “SARS-CoV structure ticks” or “SARS-CoV-2 structure
ticks” or “Covid-19 structure ticks”.
Host range: “coronavirus/ Runde coronavirus-like host range
ticks” or “SARS-CoV host range ticks” or “SARS-CoV-2 host range
ticks” or “Covid-19 host range ticks”.
Distribution: “coronavirus/ Runde coronavirus-like
distribution ticks” or “SARS-CoV distribution ticks” or “SARS-CoV-2
distribution ticks” or “Covid-19 distribution ticks”.
Cross-referencing was done to find extra studies meeting the inclusion
criteria. The published articles were evaluated by reading the full
text. The Integrated quality criteria for review of multiple study
designs (ICROMS) scoring system was used to assess the standard of
articles (Zingg et al., 2016). The standard of appropriate studies was
ranked as ‘low’, ‘moderate’ or ‘high’. The hypothesis was then
formulated based on the appropriate evidence of each study.