{"doi":"10.3389/fviro.2025.1696495","title":"Editorial: Epidemiology and control of blood-borne viruses in low- and middle-income countries: genomic insights and public health strategies","abstract":"Blood-borne viruses (BBVs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV), continue to impose a staggering burden on global health, with a disproportionate impact on low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). These regions face a dual challenge of the highest prevalence of infections and the most significant constraints on resources needed for effective public health responses. Ambitious global targets, such as the World Health Organization's (WHO) goal to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, underscore the urgency of the situation (1). However, achieving these goals requires a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between viral evolution, transmission dynamics, socio-economic factors, and the challenges of healthcare delivery in resource-limited settings.It is precisely this need that our Research Topic, \"Epidemiology and Control of Blood-Borne Viruses in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Genomic Insights and Public Health Strategies\" was conceived to address. The objective was to collate a broad collection of studies that leverage molecular epidemiology, data-driven modeling, and implementation science to illuminate the path toward controlling BBVs in LMICs. We are pleased to present a collection of five articles that provide a compelling, multi-faceted perspective on these critical issues.The initial aim of this Research Topic was to explore the landscape of BBV control from multiple perspectives, from global burden estimates to implementation. The five articles in this collection have successfully met this objective, each providing a unique and vital perspective on this multifaceted challenge.At the highest level, the work by Zhang et al. provides a sweeping analysis of the global burden of acute viral hepatitis using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2021 [2]. Their findings confirm that while incidence rates are declining globally, the burden remains immense and is tightly, and inversely, correlated with the socio-demographic index (SDI). This establishes a foundational theme of the collection: lack of fair access to health care is a primary driver of the BBV epidemic.Zooming into a continental focus, the systematic review by Ambassa et al. addresses the critical issue of viral co-infections in Africa [3]. By synthesizing data on HIV-HBV and HIV-HCV co-infections, they highlight the necessity for integrated screening and management strategies, reminding us that patient care must be all-inclusive.At the national and sub-national level, two articles use distinct methodologies to dissect epidemic drivers. Brites et al. conducted a multicenter cross-sectional study of HTLV-1 in Brazil, an often-neglected virus that is endemic in the country [4]. Their work provides crucial prevalence data and identifies key risk factors, older age, female gender, and HCV co-infection, pointing toward sexual transmission as a primary driver and demonstrating the importance of surveillance in specific, at-risk populations (Figure 1A). to people who inject drugs (PWID) in Kenya [6]. This work moves beyond epidemiology to the practicalities of implementation, identifying critical barriers such as limited laboratory capacity and financial constraints for patients, that lead to significant patient drop-off in the cascade of care (Figure 1B), while also showcasing the promise of peerled, integrated care models. Synthesizing the findings from these diverse articles reveals several cross-cutting themes that are central to advancing the fight against BBVs in LMICs.First is the pervasive and defining role of socio-economic disparity. This was quantified on a global scale by Zhang et al. [2], modeled mechanistically by Abbas et al. [5], and observed at the patient level by Boke et al. [6], where a patient's inability to afford transportation could mean the difference between treatment adherence and failure. This collection re","journal":"Frontiers in Virology","year":2025,"id":559280,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9557,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":763206,"name":"Sana Tamim","orcid":"0000-0001-6929-7437","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1189114,"name":"Marceline Djuidje Ngounoue","orcid":"0000-0003-0031-3958","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295650,"name":"Nídia S. Trovão","orcid":"0000-0002-2106-1166","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":2,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:55:34.849815Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}