Chikungunya News and Research

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Snapshot of chikungunya could help find new ways to prevent or treat viral arthritis

Chikungunya virus, once confined to the Eastern Hemisphere, has infected more than 1 million people in the Americas since 2013, when mosquitoes carrying the virus were discovered in the Caribbean.

4 Jun 2019

Europe under major threat from vector-borne diseases

Researchers presenting at ECCMID have warned that vector-borne diseases are on the rise and threatening to spread into many parts of Europe.

From ESCMID 15 Apr 2019

Geographical range of vector-borne diseases expands rapidly, shows research

New research presented at this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases in Amsterdam, Netherlands shows that the geographical range of vector-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue fever, leishmaniasis, and tick-borne encephalitis is expanding rapidly.

15 Apr 2019

New technique to test for viral infections discovered

A team of Colorado State University researchers has developed technology that can detect extremely small amounts of antibodies in a person's blood. Antibodies develop to infect cells or kill pathogens, essentially fighting off a bacteria or virus. The levels of antibodies in the blood can tell whether that person is sick.

9 Apr 2019

UTMB receives grant to combat highly-lethal hemorrhagic fever viruses

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Profectus Biosciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Mapp Biopharmaceutical and Genevant Sciences Corp. have been awarded up to $35 million to advance the development of rapid-acting vaccines and broad-spectrum treatments of the highly-lethal hemorrhagic fever viruses Ebola and Marburg.

9 Apr 2019

Global warming will raise risk of Mosquito borne diseases globally

Because of global warming, it is estimated that there will be a major surge in mosquito-transmitted diseases which would kill half a billion more people over the next three decades.

29 Mar 2019

Research provides opportunities for biological control of insect-borne pathogens

Researchers from INRA, CIRAD, CEA, the University of Montpellier, and Chicago and Vanderbilt Universities in the United States have developed an innovative method for analyzing the genome of the Wolbachia bacterium.

27 Mar 2019

New survey indicates need of attention to neglected tropical diseases

Although neglected diseases account for 11% of the global disease burden, they are targeted by only a small proportion of the new drugs developed every year.

22 Mar 2019

Predicting global spread of mosquitoes

Outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses like yellow fever, dengue, Zika and chikungunya are rising around the world. Climate change has created conditions favorable to mosquitoes' spread, but so have human travel and migration and accelerating urbanization, creating new mini-habitats for mosquitoes.

5 Mar 2019

Study: Chikungunya virus arrived in Brazil at least one year before it was detected

New evidence suggests that Chikungunya virus arrived in Brazil at least one year earlier than it was detected by public health surveillance systems.

26 Feb 2019

Viruses in the intestinal tracts can lead to islet autoimmunity and Type 1 diabetes

Researchers at the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, provide new evidence supporting an association between elevated levels of enteroviruses in the intestinal tracts of children and islet autoimmunity, a precursor to Type 1 diabetes.

20 Feb 2019

Mosquitoes can hear over distances much greater than suspected before

Mosquitoes can hear over distances much greater than anyone suspected, according to researchers at Cornell and Binghamton University.

11 Feb 2019

Scientists wean mosquitoes off blood with dieting drugs

Researchers have found a way to reduce the blood thirst of mosquitoes and prevent mosquito bites and spread of mosquito borne illnesses such as Zika, dengue fever, malaria and chikungunya.

7 Feb 2019

New disease surveillance tool enables early detection of viral outbreaks

During the Zika virus outbreak of 2015-16, public health officials scrambled to contain the epidemic and curb the pathogen's devastating effects on pregnant women. At the same time, scientists around the globe tried to understand the genetics of this mysterious virus.

5 Feb 2019

Mechanisms of insecticide resistance impact transmission of West Nile virus

In a context of overuse of insecticides, which leads to the selection of resistant mosquitoes, it is already known that this resistance to insecticides affects interactions between mosquitoes and the pathogens they transmit.

31 Jan 2019

DZIF scientists reveal problems with available diagnostics for Zika and chikungunya virus

Millions of people have contracted Zika and chikungunya virus infections since the outbreaks that have been striking Latin America since 2013. Particularly Zika-related malformations in newborns warrant reliable diagnostics.

18 Jan 2019

New vaccine shows promise against chikungunya virus

A live vaccine genetically engineered from a common measles vaccine promises to be effective against the chikungunya virus. Such is the central finding of a recently completed Phase II trial now published in the prestigious journal "The Lancet".

21 Dec 2018

Hepatitis C drug can eliminate chikungunya, yellow fever virus

A study performed at the University of São Paulo's Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) in Brazil shows that sofosbuvir, a drug used to treat chronic hepatitis C, is capable of eliminating chikungunya virus and yellow fever virus.

19 Dec 2018

Why Mosquitoes prefer some people over others: Genetic discovery

A new study has tried to assess the genetic variants among mosquitoes that make them more susceptible to spreading deadly viral diseases such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika and chikungunya and more resistant to insecticides that are used to kill them.

25 Nov 2018

Anopheles species may be important vectors driving spread of Mayaro virus in the U.S.

Mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles are well known as primary vectors of malaria. But a new study suggests that Anopheles species, including some found in the United States, also are capable of carrying and transmitting an emerging pathogen, Mayaro virus, which has caused outbreaks of disease in South America and the Caribbean.

9 Nov 2018