Dengue Fever News and Research

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Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms typically begin three to fourteen days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash.

Antivirals from shark cartilage compound squalamine

A unique compound originally isolated from sharks could prove to be a promising treatment for hepatitis B and C and other viral diseases, researchers say. Known as squalamine, the drug has not yet been tested as an antiviral agent in humans, but it has been given to hundreds of people enrolled in clinical trials designed to test its usefulness for other conditions. Researchers say they hope to begin human trials to test the compound’s antiviral activity within the next year.

21 Sep 2011

Pakistan officials move to contain dengue epidemic that has infected thousands

"On top of a raging insurgency and devastating seasonal floods, Pakistan is reeling from a particularly acute outbreak of dengue fever that has left local authorities scrambling to contain the epidemic" and has put a strain on the health care system, the Washington Post reports, adding that the disease "has already infected thousands across the country and killed as many as two dozen people."

21 Sep 2011

Umeå University´s Centre for Global Health Research hosts meeting on Dengue fever

On September 21-23, researchers and specialists from 11 countries, including Thailand, Singapore, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and several European countries, will meet in Umeå to begin a four-year collaboration set to enable the surveillance and control of Dengue fever.

19 Sep 2011

Congressional cuts to global health R&D spending would hinder preparations for new pandemic threats

The movie "'Contagion' is fiction, but truth closely trails behind. It tells an effective story of why we need new vaccines, tests, drugs, and other tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases to address existing and emerging global health threats," Kaitlin Christenson, coalition director of the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), writes in an opinion piece in The Hill's "Congress Blog."

17 Sep 2011

Pakistan's Punjab province reports growing dengue outbreak

"The government in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab is struggling to control a growing dengue fever epidemic, officials say," and they "have warned that it threatens to affect other parts of the country," BBC News reports.

15 Sep 2011

ASTMH annual meeting to explore latest research on infectious diseases

The 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) -- the largest of its kind in the world -- will bring together in one place global experts who are battling a wide range of bacteria, viruses, parasites and other pathogens that each year kill or sicken hundreds of millions of people.

12 Sep 2011

Injecting mosquitoes with bacterium shows potential for dengue elimination, scientists report

Injecting mosquitoes with the Wolbachia bacterium "can block them from transmitting the dengue virus and help control the spread of a disease that kills 20,000 annually in more than 100 countries," a team led by Scott O'Neill, a geneticist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, reports in two papers published in Nature on Thursday, Reuters reports.

26 Aug 2011

Dengue fever mosquito trial successful

Researchers have stopped mosquitoes from spreading the dengue virus by infecting it with bacteria from flies that commonly live in kitchen fruit bowls. The two papers showed how the fruit-fly bacteria was established in wild mosquito populations, offering a practical and inexpensive way to stop transmission of dengue fever which affects 50 million people annually.

25 Aug 2011

New way to combat dengue fever

The spread of Dengue fever in northern Australia may be controlled by a bacterium that infects mosquitoes that harbor the virus, Australian and U.S. researchers report Aug. 25 in two papers published in the journal Nature.

25 Aug 2011

Wolbachia infection invades Aedes aegypti mosquito, blocks dengue transmission

Strains of a bacterium commonly found in fruit flies can prevent the Aedes aegypti mosquito from transmitting the virus that causes dengue fever, researchers have found.

25 Aug 2011

New ‘cure-all’ antiviral method discovered

In a new development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.

15 Aug 2011

Kineta's next generation antiviral program receives $2.8 million NIH SBIR grant

Kineta, Inc. announced today its next generation antiviral program has received a 2.8 million dollar grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Awarded under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the prestigious phase two grant will provide on-going support for Kineta's work on a new class of antiviral drugs targeting an array of global, deadly viruses.

12 Aug 2011

PBS NewsHour examines use of Twitter to track disease spread

PBS NewsHour's blog "The Rundown" examines "a recent slate of independent studies" that assert "Twitter can accurately track the spread of a virus or disease - and do it much faster than traditional surveillance methods."

12 Aug 2011

DYCAST software predicts spread of mosquito-borne West Nile virus in California counties

A computerized epidemiological model of the spread of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus in 17 counties of California in 2005 successfully predicted where 81.6 percent of human cases of the disease would arise and defined high-risk areas where the risk of infection turned out to be 39 times higher than in low-risk areas, according to newly published research.

12 Aug 2011

Twitter, Facebook emerging as disease-fighting tools

From Iowa to Brazil, researchers are discovering there is a distinct association between complaints, worries and random rants on the social media site and the spread of medical issues as wide-ranging as the flu, dengue fever and pollen-induced allergies.

11 Aug 2011

Tips to minimize risk of bug bites and related illnesses

While the image of a bug crawling on your arm or a creepy crawler snuggling up in your bed is enough to make you flinch, most bug bites are harmless and disappear on their own in a matter of days. Other insects, however, can spread disease and cause severe reactions that require medical attention.

4 Aug 2011

Combination strategies more effective for reducing population of tiger mosquitos

An experimental research carried out in Sant Cugat del Vall-s and Rub-, coordinated by researchers from UAB, assessed the efficacy of a combination of strategies to reduce the population of tiger mosquitos.

25 Jul 2011

Combination of strategies reduces more than half the number of tiger mosquitos

The combination of three complementary measures to eradicate tiger mosquitos - avoid having stagnant water, using insecticides to eliminate larvae and adults, and removing rubbish - reduces more than half the number of tiger mosquitos, according to a research coordinated by researchers at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

22 Jul 2011

Software uses Twitter to track dengue outbreaks in Brazil

The New Scientist reports on a software program that is being used "to identify a high correlation between the time and place where people tweet they have dengue and the official statistics for where the disease appears each season."

20 Jul 2011

Disrupting protein components kills mosquitoes

Mosquitoes die soon after a blood meal if certain protein components are experimentally disrupted, a team of biochemists at the University of Arizona has discovered.

18 Jul 2011