Vaccines against Alphaviruses and Flaviviruses

Dear Colleagues,

Viruses transmitted by mosquitoes are responsible for millions of human infections worldwide. Two genera of these arboviruses—alphaviruses and flaviviruses—cause some of the most devastating and pathogenically diverse illnesses, including hemorrhagic fever, encephalitis, long-lasting arthritis, and severe sequalae in survivors. Historically well-known diseases such as dengue and yellow fever have infected people worldwide, and have been the focus of research for decades. Indeed, “old” vaccines that have proved successful in controlling yellow fever epidemics have had a resurgence of interest given recent outbreaks in Africa and Brazil. Efforts to generate vaccines against dengue are technically difficult and have had mixed results, despite multiple promising candidates, and only recently have large-scale clinical trials in Brazil begun. Lesser-known diseases like Eastern equine encephalitis and Venezuelan equine encephalitis have a high mortality rate and have been weaponized as bioterrorist weapons, respectively, and vaccines against these diseases are under investigational new drug status in the United States. Furthermore, within the last ten years, arboviruses have spread to new areas of the world, threatening millions of immunologically naive people and resulting in crippling diseases and economic devastation. In particular, chikungunya and Zika viruses have been responsible for outbreaks that have crossed from African and Asian countries in the Americas and are now considered endemic in many places across the world. Vaccines to combat alphaviral and flaviviral diseases are critical to the improvement of global human health, since other control measures, including mosquito reduction/elimination, have had mixed success in the past.

This Issue will feature vaccines against alphaviruses and flaviviruses of human medical importance with a special focus on novel vaccine candidates, animal model development for vaccine testing, and the advanced characterization of already-described vaccines. All types of articles will be considered for publication, including short reports, original research, and reviews.

Dr. Shannan L. Rossi
Guest Editor

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• vaccine
• arbovirus
• West Nile virus
• yellow fever virus
• Zika virus
• chikungunya virus
• dengue virus
• alphaviruses
• flaviviruses
• animal models
• nonhuman primates