Mosquito-borne arboviruses of African origin: review of key viruses and vectors

Abstract

Key aspects of 36 mosquito-borne arboviruses indigenous to Africa are summarized, including lesser or poorly-known viruses which, like Zika, may have the potential to escape current sylvatic cycling to achieve greater geographical distribution and medical importance. Major vectors are indicated as well as reservoir hosts, where known. A series of current and future risk factors is addressed. It is apparent that Africa has been the source of most of the major mosquito-borne viruses of medical importance that currently constitute serious global public health threats, but that there are several other viruses with potential for international challenge. The conclusion reached is that increased human population growth in decades ahead coupled with increased international travel and trade is likely to sustain and increase the threat of further geographical spread of current and new arboviral disease.

A comparative assessment of adult mosquito trapping methods to estimate spatial patterns of abundance and community composition in southern Africa

“…This approach is a better approximation to how the traps would be deployed for surveillance compared to targeting only sites with high numbers of mosquitoes. Despite this, the CDC trap collected 7.4 females per night while the net trap collected 8.6 females per night, similar to previous collection efforts in KNP that report aggregated data, with a median of 31 (range 17-116) females across three net traps and a median of 19 (range [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] in three CDC traps [15]. Based on this data, the consistent patterns of community composition and largely consistent patterns of abundance between traps suggest that comparisons between studies using these two methods are possible.…”

“…univittatus and Cx. theileri (based on suspected or known prime vectors in Africa, reviewed elsewhere [27]). Previous work has characterized the distribution [28], ecological drivers [29] and consequences for malaria risk [30] of key anopheline species.…”

Cis autocatalytic cleavage of glycine‐linked Zika virus NS2B‐NS3 protease constructs

“…There is a worldwide spread of Aedes aegypti due to increased trade, travel behavior, and climate change [1]. Among the diseases spread by Aedes mosquitoes are Dengue, Zika, West Nile, and Yellow fever, all of which are caused by singlestranded RNA viruses of the Flaviviridae family [2]. Zika fever in particular has gained attention in recent years because it causes severe developmental disorders in newborns [3], and Guillain-Barr e syndrome in adults [4].…”

A mosquito survey along a transect of urbanization in Dschang, West Region of Cameroon, reveals potential risk of arbovirus spillovers

“…In a recent review, Braack and colleagues [1] Orthobunyavirus genus, Bunyaviridae family. These findings originate from many studies that have investigated the prevalence of arboviruses in Cameroon mainly based on the serodiagnostic of blood samples collected from humans [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”