Arboviruses and Global Health: A PanDengue Net Initiative

As in the prior Special Issue, we expect to cover the more recent advances in flavivirus research. The collection of reviews and original research papers in this SI is intended to summarize and showcase current research on arboviruses by investigators from throughout the Americas and around the world.

Dear Colleagues,

The editorial team of the journal Viruses would like to announce the forthcoming Special Issue entitled:

"Arboviruses and Global Health: A PanDengue Net Initiative" guest-edited by Dr. Carlos A. Sariol (University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA) and Dr. Jorge Osorio (Director, Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin).

After the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, flavivirus research intensified, reuptaking existing projects that were put on hold or starting new ones. This Special Issue is in collaboration with the Pan-American Dengue Research Network and the Global Health Institute, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and is expected to provide a dynamic and rapid platform for you to publish your ongoing research work on arbovirology in general, with a special emphasis on flavivirus and its impact on global health.

DENVs are considered the most important emerging human arboviruses, with a worldwide distribution in the tropics. They cause an estimated 100–400,000,000 infections each year, 750,000 cases of severe dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome (DHF/DSS), and up to 75,000 deaths every year [1]. According to the WHO, severe dengue is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian and Latin American countries, as well as recently in the USA, where after an absence of 65 years DENV has re-established an autochthonous transmission cycle in Florida. The field of dengue research has shown considerable expansion in the last decade, with a licensed vaccine in the market, several new vaccine candidates, better understanding of disease determinants, and new developments in diagnosis, prognosis, and investigational treatments. However, there is currently no specific treatment, and new effective vaccines are urgently needed. Additionally, for this SI the scientific scope will be expanded to cover Zika, Chikungunya, Mayaro, arboviruses which have recently re-emerged in the Americas with devastating effects on human public health.

In addition, despite many years of research, multiple key questions related to complex immune interaction among flaviviruses, including the humoral, T cell, and innate immune response, are still open. Without a doubt, these areas need to be covered in order to design effective therapeutics and vaccine approaches.

PanDengue Net is a non-profit initiative that gathers scientists, researchers, and medical professionals working in the field of arbovirology across the Americas (http://www.pandenguenet.org). The PanDengue Net meeting, which is an event scheduled every two years, brings these researchers together in the context of a 4-day scientific gathering. The meeting allows presentation and discussion of recent advances in the field. The main focus is on Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, and other arboviruses of medical relevance that severely impact public health in the Americas and around the world.

As in previous meetings (2008 Recife, Brazil; 2010 Cancun, Mexico; 2012 Cartagena, Colombia; 2014, Belém, Brazil; 2016 Panama City, Panama and 2018 Galveston, Texas, USA, Lima, Peru 2023), the Medellin meeting will include preeminent scientists from a wide range of fields, including vaccine development, vector research and control, molecular epidemiology, diagnostics, antivirals, viral structure and pathogenesis, and viral immunology. The meeting is essential to foster collaborations among groups and discuss future research strategies needed to strengthen the field. Importantly, the meeting also provides a unique platform for students and junior investigators from across Latin America and the Caribbean, who are usually underrepresented in science, to come together under one roof with leading figures in the field.

Reference

1. WHO M. Dengue and severe dengue. Geneva. 2019.

Dr. Carlos A. Sariol
Dr. Jorge Osorio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• dengue
• zika
• chikungunya
• mayaro
• aedes
• immunology
• pathogenesis
• vector control

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