Chikungunya News and Research

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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

Researchers cross-reference historical divergence of Aedes aegypti populations

The BioScience Talks podcast features discussions of topical issues related to the biological sciences. Mosquito-borne diseases have plagued humanity for centuries, and a prolific offender has been Aedes aegypti, commonly known as the "yellow fever mosquito."

1 Nov 2018

Urban mosquito control with help from scientists

Thanks to an innovative mosquito control approach developed at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, residents in several Maryland neighborhoods reduced populations of invasive Asian tiger mosquitoes by an impressive 76 percent, on average.

25 Oct 2018

Influenza virus can evolve resistance to experimental antiviral drug

The influenza virus can evolve resistance to an anti-flu drug currently in development for use in pandemics but only if there are multiple genetic mutations, a study has found.

25 Oct 2018

Scientists engineer antiviral peptide that exploits Achilles' heel of Zika virus

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore have engineered an antiviral peptide that exploits the Zika virus at its Achilles' heel - the viral membrane - hence stopping the virus from causing severe infections.

24 Oct 2018

Themis, Max-Planck-Innovation sign license agreement to develop and commercialize oncolytic virotherapies

Themis announced today that it has entered into a license agreement with Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer agency of the Max Planck Society in Germany, granting it exclusive worldwide license to develop, manufacture and commercialize therapies based on an oncolytic measles virus platform that was jointly developed by the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

11 Oct 2018

Viruses shown to cause bowel dysfunction and abdominal pain

Viruses known to target the central nervous system may also affect neurons of the digestive tract, causing bowel dysfunction and abdominal pain.

4 Oct 2018