The Amazonian Tropical Bites Research Initiative, a hope for resolving zoonotic neglected tropical diseases in the One Health era

Over the last decades, unimaginable amounts of money have gone into research and development of vector control measures, repellents, treatment, and vaccines for vector borne diseases. Technological progress and scientific breakthroughs allowed for ever more sophisticated and futuristic strategies. Yet, each year, millions of people still die or suffer from potentially serious consequences of malaria or dengue to more recent infections, such as zika or chikungunya, or of debilitating consequences of neglected tropical diseases. This does not seem value for money. In addition, all current vector control strategies and personal protection methods have shortcomings, some serious, that are either destructive to non-target species or unsatisfactory in their effectiveness. On the other hand, the rapid decline in insect populations and their predators reflects decades-long aggressive and indiscriminate vector control. This major disruption of biodiversity has an impact on human life not anticipated by the well-meaning killing of invertebrates. The objective of this paper is to re-examine current control methods, their effectiveness, their impact on biodiversity, human and animal health, and to call for scientific courage in the pursuit of fresh ideas. This paper brings together topics that are usually presented in isolation, thereby missing important links that offer potential solutions to long-standing problems in global health. First, it serves as a reminder of the importance of insects to human life and discusses the few that play a role in transmitting disease. Next, it examines critically the many currently employed vector control strategies and personal protection methods. Finally, based on new insights into insect chemo-sensation and attractants, this perspective makes a case for revisiting a previously abandoned idea, the oral repellent, and its use via currently successful methods of mass-application. The call is out for focused research to provide a powerful tool for public health, tropical medicine, and travel medicine.

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Rabies in a postpandemic world: resilient reservoirs, redoubtable riposte, recurrent roadblocks, and resolute recidivism

Rupprecht

Mshelbwala

Reeves

et al. 2023

Animal Diseases

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Rabies is an ancient disease. Two centuries since Pasteur, fundamental progress occurred in virology, vaccinology, and diagnostics—and an understanding of pathobiology and epizootiology of rabies in testament to One Health—before common terminological coinage. Prevention, control, selective elimination, and even the unthinkable—occasional treatment—of this zoonosis dawned by the twenty-first century. However, in contrast to smallpox and rinderpest, eradication is a wishful misnomer applied to rabies, particularly post-COVID-19 pandemic. Reasons are minion. Polyhostality encompasses bats and mesocarnivores, but other mammals represent a diverse spectrum of potential hosts. While rabies virus is the classical member of the genus, other species of lyssaviruses also cause the disease. Some reservoirs remain cryptic. Although global, this viral encephalitis is untreatable and often ignored. As with other neglected diseases, laboratory-based surveillance falls short of the notifiable ideal, especially in lower- and middle-income countries. Calculation of actual burden defaults to a flux within broad health economic models. Competing priorities, lack of defined, long-term international donors, and shrinking local champions challenge human prophylaxis and mass dog vaccination toward targets of 2030 for even canine rabies impacts. For prevention, all licensed vaccines are delivered to the individual, whether parenteral or oral–essentially ‘one and done’. Exploiting mammalian social behaviors, future ‘spreadable vaccines’ might increase the proportion of immunized hosts per unit effort. However, the release of replication-competent, genetically modified organisms selectively engineered to spread intentionally throughout a population raises significant biological, ethical, and regulatory issues in need of broader, transdisciplinary discourse. How this rather curious idea will evolve toward actual unconventional prevention, control, or elimination in the near term remains debatable. In the interim, more precise terminology and realistic expectations serve as the norm for diverse, collective constituents to maintain progress in the field.

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The Amazonian Tropical Bites Research Initiative, a hope for resolving zoonotic neglected tropical diseases in the One Health era

Cited by 7 publications

References 54 publications

Broadening the research landscape in the field of snakebite envenoming: Towards a holistic perspective

Broadening the research landscape in the field of snakebite envenoming: Towards a holistic perspective

The oral repellent – science fiction or common sense? Insects, vector-borne diseases, failing strategies, and a bold proposition

Rabies in a postpandemic world: resilient reservoirs, redoubtable riposte, recurrent roadblocks, and resolute recidivism

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