Dengue epidemic in Central America through mutation?

Mutation in the genome of mosquitoes could have caused a dengue epidemic in Central America

09/08/2013

Central America is currently experiencing a dengue epidemic. Nicaraguan scientists around the physician Dr. Ricardo Aguilar Noguera of the Barrios clinical laboratory in Chinandega suggests that a mutation in the genetic material of mosquitoes is responsible for the outbreak.

Dengue epidemic has already claimed fatalities in Central America
In Nicaragua, 2,000 people already suffer. At least five deaths from dengue fever were recorded. In neighboring Honduras, the situation is even more dramatic. There is talk of 16,000 sufferers, of which around 2,000 suffer from a severe form of infectious disease. There were also at least 17 dead. The government had already declared a state of emergency at the end of July.

Nicaraguan scientists may have come to the root of the dengue epidemic. Transmitter of dengue fever is the yellow fever mosquito. In their genome, mutations could have caused mosquitoes to become much more aggressive and more resistant to conventional insect killers. The animals could fly up to eight kilometers and endanger the entire population, it said in a report of the newspaper „El Nuevo Diario“. „Dengue fever has always existed in this region, but more and more cases of a variant are known, which destroys the platelets and quickly leads to death“, will Dr. Aguilar Noguera quoted in the report.

The doctor urges the Ministry of Health in Nicaragua to act quickly. New chemicals or biological methods for controlling mosquitoes would have to be found. In the 1980s, a lizard species from Cuba was imported for this purpose, which was supposed to fight the insects. However, many animals were killed out of ignorance.

No vaccine against dengue fever
To date, there is no effective vaccine against dengue viruses. Although the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur had celebrated in September last year, the development of such a vaccine as a breakthrough, however, even the authors of the vaccine underlying study in the journal „The Lancet“ to an effectiveness of only up to 30 percent. The group was accused of wanting only to boost the sale of the drug.

Dengue fever is manifested by symptoms such as fever, rash and severe head, muscle and joint pain. Although the infectious disease is rather an exception in Germany, the number of cases is increasing. Travelers increasingly bring the disease from abroad or carry the pathogen unconsciously.

Image: Stefan Klaffehn