Genomic surveillance of the evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus has been essential for managing the COVID-19 pandemic, helping researchers identify new variants, track their circulation, and create new vaccines that target the most common emerging variants. The same approach is applied when developing annual flu shots. This work, however, requires a structured naming system for new variants so that everyone studying and tracking viruses can be on the same page, speaking the same language.
To date, dengue virus —the most common mosquito-borne disease worldwide, with more than 12 million cases reported this year already—has lacked an effective naming system. But Yale researchers and scientists in 14 other countries have established a new system of dengue lineages which, they say, will allow better tracking and improve vaccine development. They recently described the new system in a study published in the journal PLOS Biology .
Dengue virus is spread by mosquitoes and can cause high fever, head and body aches, nausea, and rash in infected individuals. It can also be fatal in severe cases. While dengue is most common in tropical and subtropical climates, outbreaks in those regions have increased in recent years and dengue has now spread outside of those regions.
In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) documented nearly 4.6 million cases of dengue infection in the Americas—the region most affected by the virus. So far this year, WHO has documented more than 11.
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