UH Manoa researcher examines possible implications of daily commute and mosquito-borne diseasesSeptember 18, 2009University of Hawaii at Manoa assistant researcher Durrell Kapan recently published a paper, Man Bites Mosquito: Understanding the Contribution of Human Movement to Vector-Borne Disease Dynamics, in PLoS One. Published August 26, the paper highlights how daily commuting patterns in mega-cities may be a critically overlooked factor in understanding the resurgence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, infecting 50-100 million people annually. "Even a small number of infected people who remain active can move a virus such as dengue between different parts of the community, where it will be picked up by mosquitos and, after an incubation period, be passed on to another unsuspecting passerby," says Kapan. "Our research examined whether the standard practice of eliminating mosquito vectors at residences would be sufficient to control dengue if other areas in the community still had several large patches of mosquitos that could become infected by commuters." To undertake this study, Kapan teamed up with mathematician Ben Adams from the University of Bath (UK), with support of UH Mānoa's Pacific Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research Center of Biomedical Research Excellence program (http://www.hawaii.edu/pceidr/), and as participating faculty in UH Mānoa's National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Research Traineeship (IGERT) in Ecology, Conservation and Pathogen Biology (http://www2.jabsom.hawaii.edu/igert/). "Our primary objective with this paper is to prompt researchers, public health practitioners and others concerned with vector control to look beyond the traditional epidemiological definition of a transmission cluster based on home address, and consider novel ways to control community transmission of vector-borne diseases that account for great morbidity and mortality worldwide," says Kapan. "Even a short visit to an infected patch of mosquitos, say at a lunch venue or open market, may be enough to keep the virus circulating." Adds Adams, "When someone gets infected we need to look at their recent travel patterns to figure out from which group of mosquitoes they got the disease, and to which groups they may have passed it on." University of Hawaii at Manoa |
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| Related Dengue Fever Current Events and Dengue Fever News Articles On the Trail of a Vaccine for Lyme Disease: Yale Researchers Target Tick Saliva A protein found in the saliva of ticks helps protect mice from developing Lyme disease, Yale researchers have discovered. The findings, published in the November 19 issue of Cell Host & Microbe, may spur development of a new vaccine against infection from Lyme disease, which is spread through tick bites. Climate variability and dengue incidence Research published this week in PLoS Medicine demonstrates associations between local rainfall and temperature and cases of dengue fever, which affects an estimated fifty million people per year worldwide. Drug industry, nonprofits join forces to fight world's neglected diseases Drug companies and nonprofit organizations are joining forces to develop new drugs and vaccines to target so-called "neglected" diseases that claim millions of lives in the developing world each year. Population movement can be critical factor in dengue's spread Human movement is a key factor of dengue virus inflow in Rio de Janeiro, according to results from researchers based at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil. Researchers develop the first climate-based model to predict Dengue fever outbreaks Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) are the most important vector-borne viral diseases in the World. Dengue fever costs billions in health care, lost productivity and absenteeism Researchers at Brandeis, in collaboration with several other institutions worldwide, have pinpointed for the first time the multi-country economic costs of dengue fever, the endemic and epidemic mosquito-borne illness that is a rapidly growing public health problem in tropical and sub-tropical countries. Visualizing virus replication in 3 dimensions Dengue fever is the most common infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes - some 100 million people around the world are infected. Researchers at the Hygiene Institute at Heidelberg University Hospital were the first to present a three-dimensional model of the location in the human cell where the virus is reproduced. La Jolla Institute announces 2.0 launch of major database to aid vaccine development worldwide Key improvements in a major infectious disease database that will aid vaccine development worldwide were unveiled today with the 2.0 launch of the National Institutes of Health-sponsored Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB). Mosquito parasite may help fight dengue fever Dengue fever is a terrible viral disease blighting many of the world's tropical regions. Carried by mosquitoes, such as Aedes aegypti, 40% of the world's population is believed to be at risk from the infection. Indigenous peoples at world summit to share climate change observations, coping techniques With the first climate change-related relocation of an Inuit village already underway, some 400 Indigenous People and observers from 80 nations are convening in Alaska for a UN-affiliated conference April 20-24 to discuss ways in which traditional knowledge can be used to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. More Dengue Fever Current Events and Dengue Fever News Articles |
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