Mosquito-borne diseases and control

Mosquito-borne arboviral diseases — among them dengue, Zika, and chikungunya — infect hundreds of millions of people each year, with transmission shaped by climate, urbanization, and the biology of *Aedes* mosquitoes that have spread far beyond their original range. Epidemiologists and clinicians study how these flaviviruses circulate through populations, why some infections produce severe outcomes such as microcephaly in newborns or Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults, and which communities face the greatest burden. A central challenge remains the absence of approved vaccines for most of these pathogens and the incomplete understanding of how prior infection with one dengue serotype can worsen a subsequent one — a phenomenon with direct consequences for vaccine design. Parallel work on vector control is weighing conventional insecticide programs against newer approaches such as releasing *Wolbachia*-infected or gene-edited mosquitoes, raising questions about ecological consequences and equitable deployment across low-income regions where the disease burden is heaviest.

Works

225,114

Total citations

2,963,248

Keywords

Arboviral DiseasesZika VirusDengueMosquito-borneEpidemiologyMicrocephaly